A Werewolf's Secret
by Kimagure
Summary: Yet another "how the marauders became friends" fic. May be a bit different characterization than what you're used to. Non-OotP compliant. AU as of 6-21-03 and WIP.
1. Default Chapter

Attention! 

Don't get excited. I just broke everything up into more manageable chapters. It was getting a bit long and unwieldy as it was. The last chapter is new, though. 

*****

I don't own HP…This is an MWPP/L, but the L stands for Longbottom. ^-^ Thanks to all the people in LJ land for essentially beta-ing parts of this for me! *glomps* Y'all rock. ^-^ 

Any mistakes are completely my own. Read at your own risk. 

*****

A Werewolf's Secret

*****

"Lupin! You were supposed to quit adding the ginga root when the potion started turning purple." Sirius managed—just barely—to keep his exasperation to a minimum, as he looked at the mess his partner had managed to create in the course of five minutes. Lupin might have been a whiz at all the other classes they were taking as first years, but the kid _stunk at Potions.   
  
"Sorry," Lupin murmured, looking crestfallen. The look had worked on Sirius for the first two months, but now that they were working their way into their third month, the ploy had definitely lost some of its effectiveness.   
  
Sirius looked down at the gloopy bluish-green mess. "We're done for," he sighed, resigned to the fact that this was yet another class, completely wasted. "Look, I don't know what's up with you. You can recite the whole bloody recipe for these stupid things before we start class, but once we start actually working on it," Sirius trailed off, frustrated.   
  
"You wish you weren't stuck with me as a partner," Lupin stated matter-of-factly.   
  
"How is it that you can be good at everything else but this?" He shot a sideways glance at Lupin, but saved the scowl for the potion, which was now bubbling and burping. Unlike everyone else's.   
  
"I just stink at Potions?" Lupin offered with an apologetic smile.   
  
"Well, can you try to not stink for at least one class?" He grumbled, running his hands through his hair. It was getting long, and his mum was going to have kittens when she saw him next, but it wasn't his fault that the teachers never bothered to ask the first years if they wanted haircuts, now was it? After all, his hair was still leaps and bounds better than James'. That kid had looked shaggy on the first day. Three months in and it looked as if a baby owl had taken up residence in that black hair.   
  
"I'm not doing it on purpose," Lupin said softly as they both stared despondently at the cauldron.   
  
"Could've fooled me," he muttered as he slumped down onto his stool.  
  
"Look, I said I was sorry." He could hear the frustration in Lupin's voice, but still, it wasn't as if this were a singular occurrence. This happened __every class period. And quite frankly, it showed no sign of improving any time soon. Even James had managed to get through a couple of classes with successful potions, and he was working with Peter. _Peter_. Peter didn't even know what ginga root looked like, let alone when to add it.   
  
"So you're sorry. You realize that we haven't successfully finished one of these blasted things yet this year? Not that I'm as nutty about grades as James is, but come on. I don't want to fail Potions."   
  
"What, and I do?" Lupin glared at him incredulously.  
  
"Hey, I'm not the one who keeps screwing it up," he returned defensively.   
  
"I. Can't. Help. It." Lupin spat out, eyes flashing.   
  
"So you're saying that you're naturally stupid at potions?" It wasn't that he minded covering for Lupin every once in a while if the kid hadn't done the homework, or was tired or something. But this wasn't helping out every once in a while. This happened every bloody time. Short of making Lupin stand and just watch while he did all the work, there didn't seem to be any way to make any potion work in this stupid class when they were partnered.   
  
His retort however, may have been a bit over the top, he realized belatedly as Lupin's face turned a motley shade of red in anger.   
  
"Go to hell," Lupin growled before upending the entire cauldron of potion over Sirius' head and stalking out of the room.   
  
*****  
  
Remus sunk down onto the floor in a corner of the Defense Against the Dark Arts room. Chances were, when someone got up the guts to come looking for him, the first person they'd after him would be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He snorted in contempt.   
  
Adults were so predictable.   
  
Any time there was any sort of problem that involved him, the first person all his other professors ran to was Professor Longbottom. He wondered idly if some of them didn't think it was more prudent to get the one man on campus who knew sixteen ways to kill a werewolf in less than five minutes. Longbottom had to be a more appealing choice than getting the headmaster, who had obviously lost his mind when he'd admitted Remus to Hogwarts in the first place.   
  
With the exception of Professor Longbottom and the headmaster, all of the professors were scared of him. They were wary of being in the same room with him, afraid to get close enough to hear his voice, unwilling to listen when he tried to find the time to explain to them about being a werewolf. He could smell the fear on them, see it in their eyes, but it was most noticeable in their actions. After all, if Professor Baum had bothered to meet with him the first time he'd tentatively asked for help, then he could have flat out told her that the reason he was failing potions was because he literally couldn't see where he was going wrong.   
  
Oh, but of course she couldn't do that. Mentally, he rolled his eyes. If she got to close to him, he might bite her before he had the chance to tell her that he was colorblind. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that she'd had growing up must have really stunk because, for a teacher, she seemed to know next to nothing about werewolves. He caught her sometimes watching him guardedly in class. What did she think he was going to do? Transform in the middle of potion making and go on a mad biting spree?   
  
Still, she was better than Professor Vanacker. That man just hated him on sight. Despite the fact that he'd been the first and only person in his Transfiguration class that first day to transform their pincushion into an apple, the man had still deducted points from him because the apple had been grey. He'd been pulled aside at the end of class too so that the man could tell him that, unlike the headmaster, _he_ wouldn't be mollycoddling Remus. Remus was a dark creature, a __dangerous creature, and that was all there was to it.   
  
"Thought I might find you here."   
  
He looked up to see Professor Longbottom sliding down to the floor beside him. It wasn't that he didn't like Professor Longbottom. The man was, hands down, his favorite teacher in this whole crazy school. He was also the youngest and the most popular among the students. Remus had heard somewhere that it was the man's first year teaching. Which just made him wonder if teachers simply got worse with age, because Professor Vanacker was by far the oldest and the crankiest.   
  
"Professor Baum had kittens when I dumped that cauldron on Black, didn't she," he managed in a morose, monotone voice. For his part, Professor Longbottom looked like he was holding back laughter.   
  
"It did seem a bit extreme to her," the professor trailed off as he nudged Remus with an elbow. "Wanna talk about it?"   
  
"Not really," he muttered, unhelpfully. But Professor Longbottom nudged him again, and this time with a huge put-upon sigh, Remus decided to talk. "Okay, so she's my professor and all, but she's just dumb when it comes to werewolves."   
  
"Remus," the word held a note of reprimand.   
  
"Well she is! I _tried_ talking to her about this. I've _tried_ five times to tell her that I'm having problems in class," he huffed.   
  
"If it's because you miss the class once a month-"  
  
"Oh please. I miss all my other classes, and you don't see me failing Defense Against the Dark Arts, do you?" He snapped back, causing the good natured professor beside him to sigh wearily, so Remus took pity on him. "I keep trying to tell her that I'm colorblind. But she won't let me. I've tried staying after class so I can do it privately, and she orders me out of the room before I can say a word. I've tried finding her after dinner or during her office hours, and have lost my house twenty points in the last month because of it. And Black," Remus let out a frustrated sigh. "I just lost it," he finished miserably, knowing that most of what he'd said probably hadn't made __that much sense.   
  
"You're colorblind?"   
  
Remus blinked and looked over at the Professor, incredulously. This was supposed to be the man who knew everything about werewolves, right? "Yes," he started carefully, "I'm a werewolf. All werewolves are colorblind. It's like my sense of smell. It's something I get from the wolf in me."   
  
Professor Longbottom seemed to take a moment to think on what Remus had said, and for one horrible moment, he was almost certain that the professor was going to say he was lying. In the end though, Professor Longbottom just grinned at him ruefully.   
  
"Remus, you know, just because we're professors doesn't mean we know everything or that we don't make mistakes. I know you're having a hard time of it, and you have every right to be upset sometimes. But none of us here on the staff have ever dealt with a werewolf before. And we certainly have never tried to teach one before. We're going to make mistakes."   
  
Remus couldn't help but feel a little guilty for his uncharitable thoughts as he looked over at Professor Longbottom's earnest face. "I'm sick of being the guinea pig, though. Maybe," he paused, "I don't know. I just-" he scowled at his own inability to spit it out, and then took a deep breath, determined to say the one thing that had been increasingly nagging at the back of his mind since he'd started the school year. "I just don't belong here, do I? I mean, it was really nice of the headmaster to at least let me try, but maybe everyone's right, you know. Maybe he is a bit crazy. Maybe it would just be better if I went home." He knew for a fact that most of his professors would jump for joy if he decided to run home with his tail between his legs.   
  
"Remus, you listen to me." Professor Longbottom bit into his thoughts with his fierce voice. "You belong here just as much as any other student does. It's criminal the way that werewolves are often denied simple things like an education. You are by far exceptional for your age when it comes to your mastery of magic, and you have a responsibility to yourself to see how far you can go and how much you can learn to do."   
  
Remus frowned. Well, he supposed the professor had a point. But he was only eleven for Pete's sake. He cared more about making friends, having fun and not being the 'weird' one than he cared about learning stuff.   
  
*****  
  
"Look, Potter, this really is for your own good," Remus announced as he sat on the black haired boy's chest. He realized that this was probably going to get him into a great deal of trouble, that Potter ultimately would probably be horribly ungrateful, and that in the grand scheme of things it was only going to bring the wrath of his professors down on him.   
  
But what could he say? Boredom had gotten the best of him. Someone had foolishly left him to his own devices the weekend before the full moon, and now they were just going to have to pay the consequences. He had so much pent up energy that he'd already driven himself nuts.   
  
And really, Potter needed the haircut. Remus was beginning to think that the Forbidden Forest had started to sprout out of his dormmate's head. "Now see, Potter," he started off with a delighted smile. It was just his luck that he'd managed to catch Potter off guard with his Petrificus Totalis. "We call this a comb." He waved the object in front of Potter's face. "Now, I know you have no idea what its uses are, but I'm going to show you once we cut off some of this hair. You look like Sasquatch. Peter's even having nightmares about your mop crawling off your head and eating him in his sleep."   
  
For his part, Potter couldn't talk, but if looks could kill, Remus would have been dead the moment he'd started waving the comb around. As it was though, he grinned cheerfully back at Potter as he started snipping away thatches of snarled hair. He knew that he was going to have to run like hell when he finally took the charm off Potter, but really, no harm was being done. Although, when he stopped to think of it in his more rational moments, he realized that he didn't know Potter even remotely well enough to be carrying on like this with him.   
  
Maybe that was part of the appeal though. If he wasn't going to belong, and if he wasn't going to be able to make friends, then he might as well be able to make a spectacle of himself. He wasn't going to be ignored.   
  
He frowned to himself as he continued to snip away. He wasn't going to let them ignore him. Most of the professors, the exceptions of course being Professor Longbottom and Professor Vanacker, tried to pretend that he didn't exist in their classes. They ignored him when he raised his hand, they glanced over him when asking for volunteers, and they deliberately went out of their way to avoid making any contact with him whatsoever. A perverse part of him wanted to go up to a few of them and just sneeze on them to see what they'd do.   
  
Idiots. As if you could catch lycanthropy the way you caught a cold. He rolled his eyes. And his professors complained about Peter being thick as a brick. Remus figured it took one to know one.   
  
"Lupin?!"   
  
He almost snipped off Potter's ear as the yelp startled him out of his daydreams. Snapping his head up, he caught sight of Black staring at him completely dumbfound. Since Black so rarely looked that speechless, Remus found himself laughing at the sight as he put the scissors down, much to Potter's relief probably. Not that it mattered anyway, he was pretty much finished.   
  
And now he had a new victim. The imp in him rejoiced, as he turned to address Black and climbed off of Potter. It was so good to have dormmates. Even if they had a nasty habit of excluding him. He'd heard Black and Potter sneak down to the kitchens last night. Bastards hadn't even bothered to invite him or Peter. Granted, Peter made lots of noise and was about as sneaky as a herd of stampeding elephants, but still, it had been awful rude of them.   
  
"Black! Hey! How've you been, I haven't seen you all afternoon, whatcha been up to?" He all but bounced over to the astonished boy, biting back a laugh at the utterly perplexed expression on Black's face.   
  
"Er…I was watching the teams practicing on the pitch, and then I went to get something to eat from the kitchens because I missed lunch." Black held up the apple in his hand as proof, and Remus almost felt himself salivate at the sight of it. "What's the matter with James?" Black asked then, almost cautiously.   
  
Remus gave a careless shrug as he sidled up to Black, who backed away warily. The other boy really hadn't trusted him much since the cauldron incident two weeks ago, Remus reflected. But then again, Remus hadn't been the one burping up caterpillars for three hours either, so maybe Black was a bit justified in being cautious around him.   
  
"He was bored, so we decided to play a game," Remus lied smoothly, grabbing his wand from under the folds of his robes.   
  
"What kind of a crummy game is this? He's not moving," Black pointed out, thrusting out the hand with the apple towards Potter for emphasis. Remus' eyes followed the apple.   
  
"Little Red Riding Hood," he answered matter-of-factly, getting an even odder look out of Black as a result.   
  
"What?"   
  
"You heard me," Remus calmly returned, before flashing Black a toothy smile. "With all that hair, we decided he should be the girl and I would be the big bad wolf. And now the wolf is demanding a toll."   
  
"A what?" Black looked so confused that Remus burst into laughter as he snatched the apple, whispered the charm reversal for the Petrificus and then took off running like a bat out of hell down the dorm steps and out of the tower. He knew they'd never catch him, although he had to repeatedly remind himself not to lope through the hallways on all fours.   
  
Wouldn't do to prove all his teachers' fears valid by turning in the middle of the day. Who knew what would happen next. Time might reverse itself. Cats would give birth to puppies. Werewolves would be allowed to go to school.   
  
It wasn't until hours later, long after the spurt of lupine energy had worn off, that Professor Longbottom found him curled up in a ball in the corner of the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, fast asleep with an apple clutched loosely in his hands, and dried tears tracked down his cheeks.   
  
*****_


	2. 2

*****  
  
Sirius made sure to stay very quiet as the door to the dorm room opened. He and James had sworn earlier to lay in wait for Lupin. If just to pin the kid down and demand to know what in the hell all that had been about earlier. But here it was, almost midnight, and _now_ the door was opening. Judging from the size of the shadow that the person in the doorway cast, it wasn't as if Lupin was alone either.   
  
"Here we go, Brat." That most definitely was Professor Longbottom's voice, Sirius decided. No one else in the school sounded that young or had that much authority.   
  
"M'not a brat," was Lupin's mumbled reply.   
  
"That's what all the brats say." Longbottom chuckled, and Sirius risked opening his eyes, banking on the two of them believing that everyone in the room was sound asleep. As far as he could tell, Professor Longbottom had Lupin thrown over his shoulder and was making his way to toss the kid on the one empty bed in the room.   
  
"Hate you," Lupin mumbled again, a bit sullenly this time as Longbottom flipped him over onto the bed. Which surprised Sirius. He didn't think the kid had the balls to say something like that to a Professor. Granted, up until this afternoon, he hadn't thought Lupin would have had the balls to curse anyone, so maybe appearances were a bit deceiving. The kid certainly was _strange though. There was just something about Lupin that was downright _weird_.   
  
"And here I was thinking you were such a cute, good little boy," Professor Longbottom exclaimed in an exaggerated impression of Professor Sprout as he pinched Lupin's cheek. Sirius smothered a laugh. Professor Longbottom was cool, but he could be _such_ a dork.  
  
"Bastard," Lupin returned with a weak chuckle, and Sirius found himself gaping at the kid's audacity. "Someone's gotta show you what cute and good might look like."  
  
"Kiss arse, kid," Longbottom returned easily as he reached over and messed up Lupin's hair.   
  
"It's gotta be prettier than your face."   
  
"At least people can tell the difference between the two. You," Longbottom paused, "I wonder about."   
  
"Wanker," Lupin gave a soft laugh, and Sirius tried not to fall out of bed as he leaned closer to listen better. Damn them anyway for talking so softly. Enquiring minds wanted to know who the hell had sucked out his dormmate and his Professor's personalities and replaced them with doppelgangers. "I-I didn't mean to."   
  
"I know."   
  
"It's not like I hurt him or anything."   
  
"I know that, too."   
  
"And you have to admit, he really needed the haircut."   
  
"Now you're pushing it."   
  
"Yeah, well, anyway. Just give me detention," Lupin grumbled.   
  
"It wasn't entirely your fault."   
  
"Had the fuckin' scissors in my hand, didn't I?"   
  
"Language, Brat." Longbottom rapped his knuckles lightly against the back of Lupin's head, and Sirius tried to suppress a smile. It was nice to know that Lupin didn't get away with _everything_. Those caterpillars had been absolutely vile.   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, I meant to say that I had the scissors in my goddamned fucking hands and had every intention of shaving James bald," Lupin retorted sourly.   
  
"God. You're so damned impossible."   
  
"Ah, ah. What language Professor!"   
  
"Bite me."   
  
Silence descended for a second, and Sirius could almost feel the tension in the room growing as Lupin flipped away from Professor Longbottom and pulled his covers down.   
  
"Remus, I didn't mean," Longbottom reached up to drag a hand through his hair, "I mean I wasn't-"  
  
"It's not a big deal. Forget about it."   
  
"No, no I really didn't mean it like that. Damn it. I wasn't thinking."   
  
"I said it was okay, didn't I? Who cares, right? It's my fault. I let my mouth go. Mum's always sayin' she should wash it out, it's gotten so dirty." Lupin shrugged the Professor's hand off his shoulder and Sirius heard Longbottom sigh heavily.   
  
"Not everything's your fault, kid."   
  
"I'll be sure to tell Potter that when he's whaling on me for that haircut I gave him."   
  
"Er, why don't you just come and find me the next time you get so, um, __bored, alright?"   
  
"Right. So I can clean that hole you call a room? Not on your life."   
  
"You'll jump through hoops and like it if I tell you to, Brat," Longbottom said with a soft laugh as he took Remus' pillow and whacked the kid with it. Lupin growled softly in return as Longbottom climbed off the bed. "Try not to go after anymore hapless kids with sharp objects. I just might have to kick your arse otherwise."   
  
"As if you could."   
  
"With my eyes closed and a hand tied behind my back. Easy."   
  
"Night."  
  
"Night. And try to think about what I said, okay, Remus?"   
  
"…Sure."   
  
Sirius waited until after the door had closed behind Professor Longbottom before he slunk out of his own bed and over to James'.  
  
*****  
  
James momentarily resisted the urge to shove Sirius Black off his bed. It was nice and all that the bloke thought of them as friends. In fact, James was more grateful for Sirius' companionship these last couple of months then he'd ever be able to say.   
  
But just because they'd had a few laughs together and just because they got along relatively well didn't mean that James __needed Sirius butting into his business. James didn't need __anybody. And the next person who even hinted otherwise was going to find out exactly why, he vowed.   
  
It had been humiliating enough that Lupin had managed to catch him off guard like that with the Petrificus. It had been bad enough that Sirius had seen Lupin cutting his hair. As much as he didn't want to admit it, his dignity was hanging on by a very thin thread. A stiff wind looked like it would blow Lupin over, and the kid had still managed to get the upper hand on him. It was __embarrassing.   
  
And he sure as hell didn't need Sirius treating it all like it was some fucking game.   
  
"Go away, Sirius."   
  
"But you said…"  
  
"I know what I said," he hissed softly, unable to keep his temper completely in check, "but that was when I thought the prat was going to show up at a decent hour. It's late. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed," he grumbled, purposely rolling over and pulling the covers up over his shoulders.   
  
"Are you sure?"   
  
James could hear the disappointment in Sirius' voice, and he felt a niggling of guilt. He had promised, after all, to include Sirius in on whatever he was planning to do in retaliation. There, of course, being no doubt that there __would be retaliation. "I'm sure," he finally returned softly, rolling over to look at Sirius.   
  
"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Sirius gave a stiff shrug of his shoulder before sliding off the bed and padding back over to his own. If anything, James felt worse as he watched him go. But even the guilt tugging at his gut wasn't enough to make him take back the words. It had been a different story when he'd thought that Lupin had done it as a prank.   
  
_"And you have to admit, he really needed the haircut."_  
  
The hell he did! Maybe he liked his hair long, maybe he liked it messy. Who had asked the little pipsqueak for his opinion, anyway? James fumed silently as he pulled the covers over his head. He'd been just fine with the way things were. He didn't need Lupin's fucking pity. If anyone here was deserving of pity, it was Lupin, not him.   
  
He wasn't the one who was a few bricks short of a wall, after all.   
  
He gingerly reached up a touched the shorn ends of his hair. For a first year, Lupin gave a much better haircut than James would have given him credit for. Not that it excused the little bastard or anything, but he supposed it wasn't half bad. And maybe it was a sight better than the snarled mass he'd sported before, but that wasn't the point.   
  
The point was that he was heartily sick of people feeling sorry for him. He heard the older kids whisper sometimes. And the professors! God, if he could be granted one wish and one wish only, it would be that when they looked at him, they didn't coo at him in sympathy. As if they all knew exactly what he was going through and what he felt. Oh, woe is that poor Potter kid.   
  
It made him want to violently wretch in their general direction. He wanted to see them try to bestow those pitying glances on him when they were covered with projectile vomit.   
  
Maybe he wasn't a whiz at taking care of himself—he was only eleven after all—but it wasn't like he was starving out in the streets or anything. He __had a father who loved him. And so maybe his dad _was_ a bit absentminded. So he'd forgotten to get James' haircut before school started, despite the numerous notes James had left all over his study.  
  
But really, the man was just busy. It wasn't like he neglected James or anything.   
  
James snorted angrily as he burrowed down to the foot of the bed. He hated the way that adults worried over him in melancholy voices, and he hated the way that they criticized his father. Like they fucking knew anything! They hadn't been there when she'd died. He and his father had managed—were managing—just fine.   
  
Which was a feat, because to James' way of thinking, there was no replacing someone like his mother.   
  
When he'd thought that Lupin's antics had been a prank, he'd been more than willing to let Sirius in on the retaliation. It wouldn't have been serious. It wouldn't have been personal.   
  
But Lupin's words had changed that. Now it _was_ personal. Now it _was_ serious. No one, James vowed, would pity him and live to pity him another day. Not when he had the power to stop him. And with someone as shrimpy as Lupin, it certainly wouldn't be that big of a challenge to get the point across.   
  
All he had to do now was just bide his time.  
  
*****_

  
"Peter! You're _leaving_ me!" Remus cried out melodramatically before throwing himself at Peter in an attack hug, his voice echoing across the Great Hall. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't have been a big deal, but Remus was _loud_ in spite of his size. His voice had been heard over the noisy din of all the students gathered preparing to go home.   
  
"Remus," he tried timorously, gently shoving Remus off of him in hopes of convincing Remus to lower his voice a few decibels. He hated being the center of attention. He wasn't quite sure if Remus had figured that out or not, or if the other kid just didn't care. If there were anyone in the school who should want to stay hidden, it should have been Remus. The bloke was just odd.   
  
But Peter supposed part of Remus' weirdness was flaunting that oddness for the rest of the unsuspecting world to see. Obviously being the center of attention didn't bother Remus half as much as it bothered him.   
  
"You're leaving me here _all by myself_ for Christmas," Remus wailed, once again drawing the eyes of anyone within hearing distance. Peter blushed, hating the way that, despite the fact that Remus was making an arse out of them both, he still felt a warm happiness at the thought that _someone_ here in this god awful school was happy to see him and sad when he left.   
  
"You'll live," he replied shortly, pulling at his trunk and wishing that he hadn't packed so much.   
  
"No I won't! I'll _die_ if you don't come back, Peter." Remus looked at him with a solemn face, and for a split second Peter took him seriously. They may not be the best of friends, but they were still friends. And Peter had noticed the way that Remus' moods went. It always seemed that just when Remus got to be his happiest, his mum would get sick, Remus would leave to spend a night with her, and then he'd come back depressed and lifeless.   
  
"Remus, I am coming back," he tried to reassure. The gleam in Remus' eyes though told him that the shorter kid had already known that though, and Peter couldn't help but groan out loud as he tried once more to pull his trunk as far away from his crazy friend as possible.   
  
Which of course only incited Remus into making the loudest whoop he could, causing everyone to come to a stop and turn and stare at them. "I'm gonna count the days, okay? I'll make bloody sacrifices every night to the God of Friendship, and then I'll dance naked under the moon in breathless anticipation of your return. And when you get back we'll make _waffles."   
  
Remus was just completely _nutters_.   
  
Peter shook his head chagrined as Remus cast a levitating charm on Peter's trunk before saluting him and running pell-mell back into the castle. Even if the kid wasn't playing with an entirely full deck, Peter had to admit that at least Remus kept things interesting. Maybe it was just that Peter had always been what his mother had termed a 'shy boy'. He'd never really much been for throwing himself into the boisterous fray of the boys his age. He liked the quiet. He liked having the quiet to himself. At home he so rarely had it, that whenever he was away from the multitudes of siblings that lived under the Pettigrew roof all he wanted was to pull up a patch of the world to call his own and sit in the peace and the calm.   
  
But that didn't mean that he wanted to be alone all the time either. It confused him, really. He'd gone off to school thinking that it would be so grand to not have to share _everything_ with his annoying younger brothers and sisters. But once their presence had been taken out of the picture, things had almost been __too quiet.   
  
Which was one of the reasons that Peter genuinely liked Remus. Even if the kid was—as Peeves taunted sometimes—a total loony, he made the loneliness disappear. Maybe a bit too loudly sometimes, but he never failed to try and include Peter in things just when it seemed to Peter that the silence had become oppressive.   
  
"God, Lupin's just _creepy_ sometimes."   
  
"Who asked you?" The defensive words flew out of Peter's mouth before he could call them back, and as he turned slightly to face Sirius Black, he regretted his words. Everyone in their class knew that Black hadn't been on very good speaking terms with Remus since the cauldron incident. The debacle with Potter's haircut hadn't done a lot to smooth things over either.   
  
"What do you care? He's just a shrimpy little lunatic," Sirius scoffed, looking down at Peter with disbelief that Peter might actually try to defend Remus.   
  
And okay, so Remus wasn't exactly the poster child for normality. But what right did Black have to get so snippy about it? As a half-muggle, Peter would have thought that the guy would be a bit kinder to those who were different from the rest. He scowled at Black then, his mind made up. He didn't need to get on the good side of people like Black.   
  
"You don't know anything about anything," he retorted quickly before tugging the rope on his trunk and losing Black to the swarm of kids on the platform. Maybe it wasn't the best of comebacks, but he wasn't going to sit still and nod kindly as some kid badmouthed the only person in Hogwarts who'd attempted to make him feel welcome.   
  
*****  
  
Remus sighed heavily as he reached the bottom stair that led to the tower. He really didn't want to have to stay in the rotten old moldy castle for Christmas, but he knew going home wasn't an option.   
  
He'd outgrown the cage in the basement. The last change he'd had at home had rendered the steel bars and locks into nothing but scrap metal.   
  
While his parents weren't poor, they weren't exactly wealthy beyond words, either. Constructing a concrete shed in the backyard that he wouldn't be able to escape from had been a feat that was both straining their funds and their patience. He could read between the lines of the letters his mother sent him. They hadn't been able to afford the down payment until last month, and the shed itself was only half built. With the full moon falling over Christmas this year, they'd agreed that he'd stay at Hogwarts for it.   
  
He wanted to go home.   
  
Staring morosely at the stairs, Remus made a face. That was yet another crappy thing about being a werewolf. What he wanted didn't matter. It just wasn't important. Because safety was everything.   
  
Well, the upside was he'd have the whole common room and dorm to himself. And since it was the week before the full moon, he should start the exercises that Professor Longbottom had badgered him into promising to do.   
  
Adults were so strange. It was just a little extra energy. It wasn't like he was swinging from chandeliers reciting bad poetry. But then again, maybe he was the only one who found it ironic that Peeves could do just that and yet still get away with calling _him_ loony. Fucking ghost.   
  
For the hell of it, he let out a war whoop before charging up the stairs at a dead run. Half the portraits lining the walls jumped in response which made him laugh even as he yelled, enjoying the echo of his voice against the empty halls. It felt so good to just yell and scream. He tried so hard to keep everything pent up inside. Letting all the frustrations, the confusion, and the anger come out in all its savage glory just gave him cheap thrills.   
  
He crashed through the hallway, skidding slightly as the rug on the hardwood floors threatened to slide out from under him. Laughing, he yelped the password at the Fat Lady before barreling through the portrait door and galloping up the stairs to his dorm. He knew exactly what he was going to do first. He was going to jump on everyone's beds with his shoes on until he either broke the beds or someone came in to stop him. That should be enough exercise to get the werewolf in him to relax a notch.   
  
"Buggrit! What are _you_ doing here? God, I _hate_ Christmas." Remus came skidding to an abrupt stop as Potter's voice directed his attention to the picture window of their dorm where Potter was looking out over the school grounds. Without stopping to think, he snarled. Voicing his displeasure, just in a slightly different way than the one Potter had chosen.   
  
"I _would_ get stuck with the basket case," Potter snorted.   
  
"Fuck," was his rather intelligent reply. "Fuck, fuck, __fuck!"   
  
"Your grasp of the English language is astounding," Potter retorted dryly before turning his attention back to the window.   
  
"Screw you," Remus added with a rude gesture which he knew Potter wouldn't see since the other boy was intent on ignoring him. God, he hated it when people ignored him! Growling, he marched determinedly over to Black's bed. It's not like Black would care, he wasn't here anyway. And any damage he did would be repaired by the house elves long before Black even dreamed of coming back.   
  
He climbed on the bed, and then proceeded to jump as hard and as high as he could. The mattress creaked heavily under his weight, but he didn't care. It was like his life. Ups and downs, the exhilarating feeling of being at the natural high, and the funny feeling in his stomach as it flip-flopped on the lows. All the while, he just kept waiting for the mattress to give out from under him, sending everything crashing to the ground. The anticipation only made him jump that much harder.   
  
"What the hell are you doing, you freak?!"   
  
"What's it look like, genius?"   
  
"Get the fuck off of Sirius' bed before you break it."   
  
"Make me, you wanker."   
  
"What did you say?" Potter's voice was low and dangerous, and for a moment, Remus quit jumping to favor his adversary with a calculated smile.   
  
"I said make me. You act like you're _so_ special. All the professors practically fall all over themselves to pay attention to you. You're fucking pathetic. Everyone wants to hold lil' ickle Jamie's hand and make sure he doesn't have a runny nose. Poor baby might stub his ickle toes and hurt himself." Remus gave him a nasty smile before he resumed jumping. Potter had been asking for it. He'd practically been begging for a fight since Remus had cut his hair. Well, being the obliging type of person that he was, he figured he'd give the prat a shot. Beating the crap out of someone was a form of exercise. If Longbottom had a problem with that, then he shouldn't have abandoned Remus the moment everyone started packing for Christmas vacation.   
  
With a snarl of rage, Potter jumped, tackling Remus' legs and sending them both sprawling to the floor with a resounding thud. For a moment, Remus was dazed, letting Potter pound on him as he tried to get the ringing out of his ears that had resulted when his skull had smacked against the floor. The shock didn't last long though, and before Potter had much of a chance to gain the upper hand, Remus was whaling on him just as hard as the bigger boy was landing punches on him.   
  
A part of him thrilled at the violence.   
  
The blood, the anger, the viciousness that crawled up through his veins and let him grind out a satisfying growl as he felt his hand come away from Potter's face sticky and red.   
  
He lost himself in the bloodlust.   
  
Professor Longbottom had him in a headlock and was shaking him rather roughly before he snapped out of it, the black haze disappearing from his grey vision and letting things crystallize back into a more rational frame of reality. It was then that he saw the apprehensive, scared look on Potter's face. The disappointment on Longbottom's.   
  
And it was then that he felt his stomach flip-flop wildly as the knowledge of what had happened sank in. He stilled for a second, feeling Longbottom's grasp on him slacken just enough. Then he bolted from the room, barely making it down the stairs and into the WC before he heaved the contents of his stomach into the toilet.   
  
He was an animal. A fucking, filthy _animal_.   
  
He heaved until there wasn't anything left in his stomach to come up, and even then, he sank to the cold tile floor of the WC, sobbing brokenly. All he wanted in the entire world was to be _normal_.   
  
He just wanted to be human.   
  
And it was a wish that no one was ever going to be able to grant him.   
  
He felt rather than heard Professor Longbottom as the man tentatively pulled back his fringe and methodically wiped the excess vomit off of his mouth. How fucking pathetic was this? Some balls he'd had to call Potter pathetic. It didn't get any worse than having a professor cleaning you up like you were a helpless toddler.   
  
"It's going to be all right, Remus. I know it's hard, but it's going to be all right," Longbottom murmured soothingly.   
  
But he didn't feel soothed by the words. How could Longbottom say that it was going to be all right? What the fuck did the man know anyway about werewolves or what it meant to be a werewolf?   
  
It was _never_ going to be all right.   
  
*****_


	3. 3

*****

  
"Oh my god, Frank! What happened to him?"   
  
Frank jerked his head up, fumbling slightly to get a better hold of Lupin in his arms as the kid's head lolled to the side. "Emily?" He asked, almost in disbelief as the school's potions master came running up to the two of them from the opposite end of the hallway. He didn't know her that well. In fact, the only interaction he'd had with her so far had been during staff meetings where he'd tried to get her to see that Remus wasn't dangerous or stupid.   
  
So far he hadn't been entirely successful. Although from the concerned look on her face, now might be his chance.   
  
"He looks awful, the poor lamb," she cooed softly, pulling Remus' dirty hair off of his face and gingerly feeling around the black eye Remus had gotten from James and the new scratches Remus had across his left cheek.   
  
As for the 'poor lamb', he'd probably have conniptions if he heard one of his hated professors crooning over him the way Emily was right now.   
  
"It's the morning after the full moon," he explained, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice at her blank gaze. "It's not as bad as it looks, you should have seen him after his first full moon here. Poppy actually had to give him about twenty stitches." Actually, that had been a sobering moment for him as well. Seeing Remus, seeing such a small scrawny kid subjected to self-mutilation because of his condition, really seemed to drive home why Defense Against the Dark Arts was so important and why its applications had to be taught in real world contexts. Theory didn't mean shit when faced with a snarling beast that would either kill you or leave your life a living hell.   
  
"You mean," he could see the light dawning in Emily's eyes as the realization struck, "he does this to himself? When he changes-"  
  
"When he turns into the wolf and realizes he's trapped in the shack with no way of acting on the instinct that the werewolf instills in him, he attacks himself and draws his own blood instead."  
  
She looked positively horrified at the words. "I-I had no idea."   
  
"Not many people do," he added with a nonchalant shrug as he hiked Lupin's limp body up in his arms again and headed for the infirmary. He could hear Emily trailing after him and he managed a chagrined smile at the thought. She may have some blind prejudices, but she wasn't a wholly bad person. She just had a tendency to see things in black and white sometimes, and he assumed that before now she'd seen Remus' affliction as a reflection of Remus' soul.   
  
"Poor lamb, it must be so hard for him," she murmured softly as they walked into the room and she was given a fresh look at him under the harsh lights of the infirmary instead of the dim candles of the hallway.   
  
"He manages." Frank smothered his grin as he laid Remus down on the first available bed. Emily was such a soft touch. Remus complained to him sometimes—in the long list of complaints he had about Emily—that she fell for every sob story the students told her.   
  
"Still, I never thought," she frowned, "I never guessed it would be like this." She gestured.   
  
"Oh, that reminds me," he decided to throw in casually. Remus would thank him for it later. Or bitch about how Frank let the professor Remus hated cry over him, but he supposed that was probably an age and stage thing. "Remus wanted me to tell you that he's colorblind. That's why he has so many problems in your class and why he upended that cauldron on Sirius last month."   
  
"Oh," she managed, looking more stunned—if that were possible—than she had when she'd spotted them in the hallway. "Oh, now I just feel awful," she frowned, looking miserable.   
  
"What for?"

  
"Oh, don't play dumb with me, Frank. You know exactly what it is that I should feel bad about, I wager. That boy follows you around like you're Merlin reincarnated. He completely idolizes you. I just," she paused, "I was-"  
  
"A lot of people are scared of what they don't understand," Frank tried to reassure gently.   
  
"But that's no excuse, don't you see?" She sighed heavily. "It doesn't help that he's in the same house and rooming with that Potter boy."   
  
"I know. I think that definitely added some to the prejudice he's been subjected to from the professors." Frank added, hating the irony of the situation and hating the way the situation had insidiously set a lot of professional adults against Remus before the kid had even had a chance to prove himself. "When you see one child who has lost his mother to a werewolf in a horrific manner which was sensationalized wildly in the papers and then realize that you've put him in the same room with a werewolf and that he sleeps no less than ten feet away from that werewolf every night," he sighed. "None of the professors were comfortable with that juxtaposition."   
  
"You were."   
  
"Yeah, well, it's my job to understand people like Remus a bit better than most," he managed sheepishly as she shot him a faint smile.   
  
"Poor lamb," she crooned softly once more, smoothing the hair off of Remus' forehead. Frank wondered if she saw the irony in that particular pet name, but decided not to say anything as he settled down into the chair on the opposite side of the bed.   
  
"Poppy usually shows up in about fifteen minutes to patch him up. He'll sleep most of the day away regaining his strength."   
  
"Poor, poor little lamb-"   
  
Neither adult noticed that Remus' breathing had changed halfway through the conversation. Neither adult had noticed that Remus had been awake and fully conscious of every word they'd said upon entering the infirmary.   
  
*****   
  
Remus looked up from the book he was reading for the fifth time in ten minutes to sneak a glance at Potter, who was sitting cross legged on the bed, no less than ten feet away from him. He wondered idly for a moment if it had been the same werewolf before dismissing the thought from his head completely.   
  
It didn't matter. What was done was done. And no one knew better than him that once something had happened no one could turn back the clock and fix it. All the time turners in the world couldn't have prevented him from getting bitten.   
  
Once infected, that was it.   
  
He glanced over at Potter again. If Potter knew his secret…  
  
Well, it was probably for the best that they hated each other's guts, he decided. They'd never been able to be friends with something like this hanging between them. Remus may not have been a saint, but even he couldn't stomach the thought of lying about his disease to someone who knew firsthand how deadly the disease could be.  
  
It wasn't like he'd wanted to be friends with Potter, he told himself. What was so great about the uptight prick, anyway? Even if Remus had wanted friends—which, he assured himself, he most certainly did not—he wouldn't have wanted to be friends with some snobby stuck up prat that thought he was better than everyone else. It really wasn't that big of a loss.   
  
"Argh! Quit fucking _staring_ at me, already!"   
  
Remus blinked momentarily, shaking off his thoughts as Potter stomped over to his bed and shoved him hard on the shoulder. Potter looked thoroughly hacked off. Which, Remus assured himself, was not his problem. "Just can't get your ugly mug off my mind," he quipped back lightly before pulling his book back up and burying his nose in it. "You fight like a girl," he added for good measure.   
  
He'd been wasting his time mourning the loss of a was-never-going-to-happen-anyway friendship. He and Potter were just destined to rub each other the wrong way. Werewolf victims just didn't go around being friendly to werewolves. It would upset the natural balance of the universe.   
  
"At least I don't look like one," Potter ground out before storming back off to his own bed, muttering underneath his breath.   
  
"Yeah, you'd make an ugly girl." Remus returned calmly, flipping a page.   
  
"You are such a freak," Potter muttered again. "You're two sandwiches short of a picnic, you are."   
  
And for a moment, Remus was furious.   
  
Oh, like Potter was just the picture of perfect mental health. The guy had looked like shag carpeting up until Remus had taken a scissors to his hair. Remus didn't literally drool over the brooms in the Quidditch supply room. Remus wasn't the one who talked about Quidditch and flying until it made people want to rip their ears off, if just to stop the torture of Potter's voice. He wasn't the crackpot who put chips and pickles on his granola in the morning.   
  
He wasn't fucking crazy!   
  
He was a werewolf, but he wasn't crazy. So he got a bit moody sometimes. Who didn't? So maybe he didn't have any friends. Who wanted to be friends with these bastards? So maybe he wasn't like everyone else. Big Fucking Deal. What the hell did they know?  
  
"Hey, at least I got parents that'll make me picnics," Remus snarled back softly. It was a pot shot, and he knew it. He had no right to be mouthing off like that to Potter. If one of the professors heard him, they'd probably slap him. He'd probably deserve it, too.   
  
As it was, Potter's face turned a motley shade of red. "Take it back."   
  
"Oh, did I hurt ickle Jamie's feelings again. Poor baby," he sneered. He could feel his heart beating hard against his chest though as Potter's face screwed up in a mixture of pain and anger. It was almost as if Remus had looked into the mirror and seen his reflection the morning after a change. Potter, he was sure, would not have appreciated the comparison. The words just flowed out though, in awful little poisonous sentences. "Poor ickle Jamie's all alone in the world. Boo-fucking-hoo."   
  
"I'm not alone." Potter's voice was almost eerily calm.   
  
"You might as well be. I mean, check out the loads of presents you got this year," Remus mocked, and his heart pounded harder. This was Potter's jugular. He knew that intuitively. All Potter had received for Christmas from family had been a stack of galleons and an absentminded letter from a father who wasn't completely dealing in reality anymore. Remus knew, he'd read the letter out of curiosity when Potter had been otherwise occupied. "Yeah, you're the center of your daddy's universe," he scoffed.   
  
"At least if I died, he'd notice. Who would notice if you dropped off the face of the planet, Lupin? Peeves?" Potter yelled back. "I didn't see the presents piling up for you, either. A couple packages from your parents, and that was it. Nobody likes you here. I don't like you. Sirius doesn't like you. Peter just doesn't count. Everyone in class thinks you're a complete nutter. The professors fucking hate you. The only one who can stand to be in the same room with you for any length of time is Longbottom, and everyone knows that he's taking off next year for auror training. Why don't you just do us all a favor and take a long walk off a short cliff."   
  
Remus' book fell from his limp hands as Potter gathered his own books and stormed out of the room, presumably to study in the relative quiet and solitude of the common room.   
  
Not that it mattered any longer to Remus.   
  
Professor Longbottom wasn't going to be teaching here next year.   
  
The only person in the whole fucking school who gave two damns about him wasn't even going to be around. Maybe he hadn't given Potter enough credit. Remus had picked this fight, convinced that the odds would be in his favor since Potter was such a pansy most of the time. But Remus had been wrong, because obviously the kid had known exactly how to go for Remus' jugular as well.   
  
The thought that maybe Potter had been lying crossed his mind. But why would Potter lie about this? Why even try to bring it up unless it was true? No, Potter had said it with entirely too much sincerity for Remus to doubt him. Longbottom was leaving. And the fucking bastard had been stringing him along the whole time. Reassuring him that things were going to get better. That eventually he'd fit in. That no one would find out his secret.   
  
What was the fucking point? At least if he told his secret, people would at least acknowledge that he existed.   
  
That wasn't really an option though. He couldn't disappoint his parents like that. They loved him. They loved him more than he probably deserved, he imagined. No one wanted a monster for a child. But it had been three years, and they still loved him. They hadn't left him at the werewolf farm like the ministry official had so strongly suggested after that horrifying first full moon. They'd fought for him when he'd been put under observation and rehabilitation by the auror team for two months shortly after he'd received the bite. They'd held him every night they could for the three months after that experience when he woke up screaming at the memories.   
  
Quitting school wasn't an option. At the very least, he owed them that much.   
  
But the idea of having to come to this fucking hell hole next year without a single ally…  
  
The thought made his heart hurt.   
  
Burrowing under the covers, he prayed that Potter stayed down in the common room for the rest of the fucking night. Because he couldn't stop the miserable tears from falling, or stop the miserable little whimpers as he sniffled. Potter's father may not have been everything a kid looked for in a parent, but at school Potter was loved.   
  
The professors fell all over themselves to talk to Potter and draw Potter out of his shell. Their classmates genuinely liked Potter and liked spending time with Potter. The guy was fun to be with and knew how to make even the most boring of events seem exciting.   
  
Potter fit.   
  
And Remus hated him for it.   
  
They spent the rest of their Christmas vacation in silence.   
  
*****  
  



	4. 4

*****  
  
Sirius fell down on his bed face first. He thought that he'd left all this crap behind when he'd come back to school. "You people stink," he muttered into his pillow, knowing that his dormmates didn't care. And why should they when they weren't speaking to each other, or to him, or to anyone…  
  
At least his parents deigned to yell at each other in between the silent treatments to break up the monotony.   
  
Something had happened over Christmas. That much was obvious. He didn't think that Peter had much to do with it since Peter spent most of his time off in whatever dreamland it was that Peter inhabited.   
  
No, this was something that had sparked purely between Lupin and James. Prats that they both were. He'd tried playing with exploding snap with James, only to be interrupted every five seconds when James would practice the Glare of Death on Lupin. Lupin, who for all intents and purposes was acting no different than he had before Christmas, was humming some strange muggle song about bullfrogs over in the corner as he did his homework.   
  
Not exactly criminal behavior, that. Which he'd made the mistake of pointing out to James.   
  
Fucking prats. He _hated_ it when people put him in the middle of their arguments. Did he _look like a fucking mediator to them? He was much better at causing problems than he was at solving them.   
  
He'd tried approaching James first, of course. He wouldn't quite call him and James best friends, but they were at least mates, weren't they? He'd thought that James would have at least _tried_ to listen to him before telling him to mind his own business.  
  
It was just that James hadn't cared a whit that Sirius wasn't full blooded. He was the first person Sirius had come across in this crazy school who hadn't picked up and joined in on Snape's 'Mudblood Black' taunt. James had even helped him do some research so that he could pull the perfect prank on Snape in retaliation. James, whether he knew it or not, had gained Sirius' loyalty in that one act alone. And now Sirius was determined to help him, whether the prat wanted his help or not.   
  
As for Lupin…well, as far as Sirius could tell, Lupin was something of a loner. And an odd one at that. But he'd taken a chance. He'd paired with the git willingly in potions that first day.   
  
For all his troubles, Lupin had repaid him by throwing a cauldron full of a fucked-up potion on his head. Sirius had given him space after that. Loads of space. One might have even said that Sirius had gone out of his way to avoid Lupin after that. The kid had a rather nasty temper as well as incredible mood swings. Sirius saw enough of that sort of thing at home to realize that he had no intention of being sucked into a friendship with someone who blew hot and cold and messed with his head on a regular basis.   
  
He rolled over and stared at the canopy of his bed.   
  
It was insane that he could be alone in a room with three other kids his age with the capability to do magic, and still be bored out of his mind. School was supposed to be fun, dammit. It was supposed to be a welcome escape from the battlegrounds of an emotional World War III. But obviously, no one had told his dormmates that. He turned slightly to glare at them.   
  
Fortunately, he looked over just in time to catch Lupin getting up and moving towards the door.   
  
"Where are you headed off to?"   
  
Lupin pulled a face and then turned to regard him with those strange eyes that had creeped Sirius out ever since the caldron incident. "What's it to you?"   
  
"I'm bored."   
  
"You could do your homework."   
  
"You could get a lobotomy."   
  
Lupin heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. "I'm going to the lav." _

  
"Great, I'll come, too." Sirius hopped off the bed and dashed for the door as Lupin tried to close it in his face. He'd already tried wearing James down, but the kid was as immovable as the castle foundations. Whatever was eating James, the kid was determined to nurse it until he turned inside out from the bitterness. What was more, James was determined to do it all by himself.   
  
As much as Sirius didn't get along with Lupin, it wouldn't kill him to try wearing down the git to the point where they could at least have civilized conversations in the dorm room without having to worry that someone might hex someone else ten ways to oblivion.   
  
Sirius wasn't optimistic enough to think that they'd all become the best of friends. But he didn't think that slightly strained civility was asking for too terribly much. _Anything_ but the oppressive silence that they lived in now.  
  
"I can take a piss alone, you know."   
  
"Eugh, like I'd help you. I wanted to ask you about Professor Longbottom," he tried nonchalantly. Lupin, however shot him a suspicious glance as they walked into the lav, letting Sirius know that he probably hadn't looked as innocent as he might have wished.   
  
"What about him?" Lupin asked as Sirius watched him methodically turn on all the taps for the six sinks in the room.   
  
"Er…why are you turning on all the taps?" Now, if this were a game, it might have potential, Sirius decided. They could flood the lav. Although, this wasn't the ideal lav to his estimation. If they could get into another house and flood _their_ lav…Now _that would be worth the effort. Once James pulled his head out of his arse, he'd have to run it by him. Sirius, of course, would take sole blame for whatever troubles followed.   
  
If he got written up enough times, if he screwed around enough, then his parents would be forced to talk to each other like civilized human beings. If just to bitch at him.   
  
"I felt like it," Remus shrugged. "What the fuck do you care anyway?"   
  
"I'm bored."   
  
"Wow. There's a revelation."   
  
Sirius ignored the jibe. "We could…you know, flood the lav on the first floor. Down by the stairs to the dungeon? I bet we could get water to seep into the Slytherin common room," he offered coolly, as if he didn't care if Lupin accepted or not. The kid was nutty enough to jump for the bait, he decided. He may not particularly _like_ Lupin a hell of a lot--Lupin had been a complete arse towards James, and Sirius still hadn't completely forgiven him for the caterpillars--but they didn't have to be friends to wreak havoc.   
  
"Why don't you go ask James."   
  
"I'm not asking James, I'm asking you."   
  
"Well, then maybe I'm not the one who needs a lobotomy."   
  
Man, he hated it when people threw the stupid things he said back in his face. "Okay, so maybe you don't need a lobotomy."   
  
"Look, I don't know exactly what it is I've done to deserve this, but can't you just leave me alone?"   
  
"But I'm bored."   
  
"So, go flood the lav downstairs. Knock yourself out. Please." Lupin glared again, this time going into a stall and leaving Sirius to stew as he watched the water flow from the taps. At first he'd been really happy to have been placed in Gryffindor, but he was seriously beginning to reconsider his acceptance now. None of the other houses could possibly have three lunatics bunked in one dorm. Of all the rotten luck, he had to get stuck in the loony bin.   
  
Which was what everyone was beginning to call them. Lupin…well, Lupin was just nuts. No explanation needed there. Peter got traumatized if someone even looked at him cross-eyed, and he'd refused to talk to Sirius after their little spat at the platform before Christmas break. Geez, the kid was twitchy. So he'd been a bit irritable about going home and he'd run off at the mouth. It wasn't like he'd committed murder or something for Christ's sake.   
  
And James…well, James had _Problems_, as his mother would say.   
  
Which meant he was the only sane one in his dorm. And dammit, what the hell was taking Lupin so long? He wanted to go flood that lav…  
  
"Oh," Lupin's face screwed up in disgust. "You're still here. Why is that again?" Lupin asked as he emerged from the stall and walked over to the sink.   
  
"We're going to flood that lav, remember?"   
  
"You've been holding your breath until you pass out again, haven't you." Lupin gave him that condescending look that made Sirius want to punch him.   
  
"Look, egghead, just grab your shoes and let's go." Sirius took in the pajamas Lupin had changed into and shook his head. Maybe it was for the best this way, if they didn't get caught it would be a bloody miracle. Lupin's choice of clothing was enough to blind someone. He was surprised the garish colors didn't give the kid a stomach ache when he looked in the mirror.   
  
"I'm not flooding anything. I'm going upstairs, I'm going to finish my potions homework, and then I'm going to bed." Lupin enunciated each word slowly, and Sirius felt himself coloring at the implication that he was stupid. That he was slow. He fucking hated it when people did that to him! He wasn't goddamn __stupid! So what if he was a year older than everyone else in his class?   
  
"Fine, be that way. At least I don't look like my own circus when I'm walking around," he muttered sullenly, refusing to admit to how incredibly lame a comeback that had to have been, since Lupin was looking at him thoroughly confused.   
  
"What in the hell are you talking about?"   
  
"Your clothes look worse than my grandfather's on bad day when he's been out golfing. At least he doesn't go for the whole avocado green, bright orange and red polka dot ensemble." He snorted as he poked at the various colors on Lupin's pajamas. Obviously, this kid's mum was something of what his mum liked to refer to as a 'hippie'. It was the only explanation that Sirius could think of for why Lupin had so many colorful clothes to begin with and why he never seemed to care too terribly much if they matched or not.   
  
For a moment, though, Remus looked utterly confused before his eyes widened and then slitted in anger.   
  
"Right, like you're the height of fashion. Bet your mummy still writes you every morning and tells you what to wear." Speaking of lame comebacks, Sirius smirked at Lupin, letting him know that the barb had missed by a long shot. His clothes might be dull and old fashioned, but at least he wasn't Hogwarts resident flower child. As if the kid needed another way to stand out like a sore thumb.   
  
"At least I don't walk around every day looking like a rainbow threw up on me." Yup, he was definitely back in business if Lupin's snarl was any indication.   
  
"Fuck off, wazzock," Lupin growled before storming out of the bathroom. Leaving Sirius alone. And bored. Again.   
  
"You people stink." The walls in the bathroom said nothing and the water ran quietly as he grumbled.   
  
*****_

Remus slid into his seat as unobtrusively as he could manage. Which, considering the circumstances, wasn't half as quiet as he'd wished. He'd started rethinking this plan about halfway down to the dungeons. But by that time, it had been too late to run back up the stairs. Well, that and pride dictated that he would see this through, no matter how potentially embarrassing it might be.   
  
It wasn't like any of these bastards could say anything that could truly hurt his feelings. Or at least, that was what he told himself…  
  
"Bloody hell, Lupin!" Black's voice was less than whispered, and Remus shot him a glare. Stupid prat. It was all his fault, anyway. Remus could have happily lived for the rest of his school days without knowing that his clothing didn't match. As far as he was concerned, sometimes ignorance really was bliss.   
  
He'd gone to Peter after his confrontation with Black. And in his really round about way, Peter had let him know that his clothing was hideous to those who could see color. Peter had tried to let him down easily, of course, but Remus could tell that when the kid had said "unique" and "rather remarkable" what he'd _really_ meant was "revolting" and "terribly mismatched".   
  
Originally, Remus had told himself that he wouldn't let it bother him. All the other kids—hell, the rest of the staff even—already thought he'd lost most of his marbles. Changing his wardrobe now wasn't going to change anything.   
  
But when he'd gone to get his clothes this morning, he couldn't bring himself to pick anything out. The white undershirt he'd chosen had been easy. He'd known it was white. The boxers too, hadn't been a problem. They were a solid color. Which color, he had absolutely no idea, but it didn't matter anyway because everything went with white, and in theory, he'd be wearing his trousers over them.   
  
Except he hadn't been able to make heads or tails of his trousers, or his shirts, and bloody forget the stupid ties, the chances of him finding a matching outfit were astronomically slim.   
  
So he'd missed breakfast because he'd been staring at his clothes like a mindless idiot. Before he'd known it, class was about to start, he still hadn't dressed, and he'd told himself to fuck it since no one was going to care anyway. The most they were going to do would be mock him, and he assured himself that there wasn't anything that they could say that they hadn't already told him before. If it hadn't killed him before, it sure wouldn't kill him now.  
  
"Where the hell are your clothes?" Black hissed as Remus pulled his potions book out of his satchel. Remus wasn't entirely certain why he even tried at potions anymore. Before Christmas and after the cauldron incident, Black had taken to deliberately screwing up the potion before Remus had a chance to do it by accident. Remus couldn't tell if Black's actions now were out of self-preservation or a genuine delight in watching things blow up. "Baum is going to have kittens when she sees you."  
  
"So? Who cares?" he made himself reply carelessly. Black's mouth worked for a moment, but no sound came out. Ultimately, the other boy shook his head and turned back to writing what Remus suspected was a note to Potter. Complaining to Potter about their strange psychopath dormmate, he imagined.   
  
As Professor Baum walked absentmindedly into the classroom, Remus slid down in his seat, pulling his book up in front of his face. Maybe, by some miracle, she wouldn't notice him…  
  
*****  
  
Lupin was living in a dream world if he thought Baum wasn't going to be aware of the fact that he wasn't wearing anything but his underwear, Sirius noted with a wry grin as he watched his partner slump down farther in his seat. Lupin had done a lot of off the wall, completely crazy things so far this year, but this really was going a bit over the top.   
  
"Remus!" Baum's shriek jolted about half the class out of their early morning complacency as she strode down the isle towards Lupin. If anything, Lupin slid farther down in the seat, watching her with wary eyes as she came to a stop at their bench. "Remus, lamb, are you alright?"   
  
It was hard to say who looked more shocked, Sirius reflected as he hid a smile. Their class had gotten rather used to the way the professors went out of their way to ignore Lupin, even when the kid was at his craziest. He'd even joked with James about it a few times, wondering what lengths Lupin would go to in the next class to get noticed. From the look of horror on Lupin's face though, as Baum reached over and felt his forehead before patting his hair in concern, made Sirius realize that while Lupin might have wanted his professors' attention, this might have been a bit more than the kid had anticipated.   
  
"I'm fine." Lupin's slightly strangled squeak only added to the hilarity of the situation, and Sirius could see parts of the class dissolving into giggles.   
  
"Now, lamb, if you're not feeling well, you only have to tell me. No one's going to be mad if you need to have a lie down upstairs." Professor Baum was looking particularly concerned, and Sirius wondered for a moment what it was that she knew that the rest of them didn't. Sure, Lupin was absent a lot, but Sirius figured it was because the kid wasn't dealing completely in reality. Sirius had an uncle on his father's side, a muggle uncle, who'd been taken away for "treatments" because he'd been acting crazy. Sirius figured they were doing something similar to Lupin, only Lupin was allowed to come back because magic just worked a lot better than muggle technology did to Sirius' way of thinking.   
  
"I do _not_ need to go have a lie down." Lupin had that look in his eye again, Sirius noted with a silent grimace. That kid got hacked off faster than anyone else he knew. What did Lupin have to feel indignant about, anyway? This was all his own fault for leaving off dressing this morning.   
  
"Why don't you just go back upstairs and get dressed, Lupin? She's not gonna lay off until you do." Sirius whispered as Baum felt Lupin's forehead for the second time, frowning slightly to herself.   
  
"Mind your own business!" Lupin hissed back, kicking him in the shin. Sirius scowled back in return as he reached down and rubbed his shin. The prat may not have been wearing shoes, but that had still hurt. Sirius had only been trying to help, after all.   
  
"Maybe I should get Frank. He'll know what's going on, don't you think, Remus?" Baum was smoothing Lupin's hair down as she bent down to his level. Lupin gaped for a few minutes, and Sirius felt much like joining him. Sure, Baum was a soft-hearted pushover, but this was weird, even for her. "If you're not feeling well, you shouldn't push yourself, lamb."   
  
"I'm _not_ sick!"   
  
"Remus, lamb…"  
  
"Stop _calling_ me that!"   
  
"Lupin, calm down."   
  
"Shut up! This is all _your_ fault!"   
  
"Me? I didn't do anything." Sirius frowned back as Lupin roughly grabbed his satchel and scrambled out of Baum's grasp. The lunatic made for the door at a dead run. "Hey! Get back here, you shrimp! You can't pin this on me." Sirius scrambled out of his own chair. Damned if he was going to let Lupin get the last word one more time. He was sick of this kid, and sick of how Lupin got away with being an arsehole to everyone and everything.   
  
"Sirius, just leave him be. He'll come back when he's ready," Baum tried to say as she grabbed his arm. He didn't care what Lupin would do when he was ready. He wanted an answer now, and the fact that this was a way to weasel out of his least favorite class just added to the appeal. He slipped out of Baum's grasp as well and ran for the door taking after Lupin as the squirrelly kid took the stairs to the tower two at a time.   
  
By the time Sirius made it up to their room, Lupin had already thrown his temper tantrum and was sitting despondently amongst his colorful clothes, which were strewn all over the bloody place. Lupin didn't even bother looking up as Sirius tromped into the room rather loudly. In fact, Lupin, for all intents and purposes, was acting like he didn't exist, which was irritating, and Sirius breathed out a long sigh as he threw his bag on the bed. Whatever crazy people treatments they were giving Lupin, Sirius could assure them that they weren't working.   
  
"What the hell is your problem?" Sirius finally demanded as the silence started to get to him. Lupin responded by pulling his knees up and turning away from Sirius to stare across the room at the numerous Quidditch posters James had insisted on putting on the opposite wall. "You've got some nerve, you know?" he muttered, randomly picking up clothes as he walked around the room.   
  
"Leave me alone."   
  
"Why don't you just fuck off, you've caused enough problems for one morning," Sirius snapped. The world didn't revolve around Lupin and whatever drama Lupin felt like living everyday.   
  
"No asked you to follow me," Lupin snarled in response.   
  
"Shut up," Sirius snapped back, pulling a pair of black trousers, a blue button-up shirt and a black tie off the floor and tossing them to Lupin. "Put those on and let's get back to class."   
  
Lupin glared at him distrustfully for a moment for tossing the clothes aside. "Fuck off, Black."   
  
"What the hell is the matter with you?!" Sirius stormed around until he was on the floor beside Lupin, his face up in the other boy's face. "You want to be a little drama queen, fine. Do it on your own time. But I've had it with you pitching fits for no particular reason. I'm sick of the way you and James act like you're about to blow each other up whenever the two of you are in the same room. Would it kill you to be to polite to him? Maybe Peter and I don't like living in a war zone, you know? Quit being such a selfish bastard and put on the goddamn clothes!"   
  
"You think I'm stupid? You just want to make me look like an arse," Lupin glared sullenly back at him.   
  
"Argh!" Sirius threw his hands up and grabbed the clothes Lupin had thrown aside. "At least you'd be wearing clothes, wazzock. Besides, why would I make an arse of you when you're perfectly capable of doing that yourself?" He shoved the clothes at Lupin, who reluctantly accepted them this time. Lupin stared at him for a long moment, which might have been unnerving had Sirius not been so hacked off.   
  
"How am I supposed to know if they match?" Lupin's voice was so soft that Sirius wasn't entirely certain he'd heard it right.   
  
"Bloody well _look_ at them," he finally sputtered as Lupin tilted his head to the side to regard him.   
  
"What about these trousers. I like these trousers better. They're softer." Lupin murmured as he pulled a pair from the pile and laid it across the blue shirt. Sirius laughed for a moment, thinking Lupin was joking. The kid _had to be joking. But the look on Lupin's face suggested otherwise.   
  
"Lupin, they're _pink_."   
  
"They are not!" Lupin retorted indignantly, and Sirius couldn't stop the chuckle from escaping as Lupin looked as his pants perplexed. "Are they?"   
  
"They are. They are very, very pink," Sirius confirmed.   
  
"Fuck."   
  
The disgusted look on Lupin's face only made him laugh that much harder.   
  
"Um, Remus, Black?" Sirius turned around to see Peter standing at the door uncertainly. "Er, Professor Baum sent me up to make sure you were doing alright." Peter scooted across the room, giving Sirius a wide berth before settling down on Lupin's other side.   
  
"Peter, is this pink?" Remus held up the trousers in his hands, and that only set Sirius off laughing again.  
  
"Yes, they're pink."   
  
"Damn." Lupin frowned. "Shut the fuck up, Black. It's not funny."  
  
"Admit it, Lupin, you're completely colorblind." Sirius chuckled, pulling the pink trousers out of Lupin's hands and grabbing a handful of the rest of the kid's clothes and shoving them in an open dresser drawer.   
  
"Fine. I'm completely colorblind." Sirius turned to laugh, but the sound died on his lips as he got a look at Lupin's face. The kid was serious.   
  
"You're really colorblind?" Sirius returned thoughtfully as he plopped down on the floor.   
  
"Is it just that you can't see red and green? I've got a neighbor at home who's like that," Peter piped in quietly.   
  
"No, I can't see color. Period." Lupin snapped, grabbing his clothes and storming off down the stair, presumably to the lav.   
  
"Weird," Sirius breathed with a shake of his head. Well, at least that explained certain things about Lupin. Strange as the kid was. After all, who the hell was completely colorblind? Maybe those treatments that they gave him had some nasty side-effects. He'd overheard his father once talking about his uncle and laughing about how they gave the crazy bastard electric shocks to the brain. Sirius couldn't imagine that a person could walk away from that with everything working the way it should. Maybe that was half the reason that his uncle was never allowed to come visit them or leave the hospital.   
  
And really, who knew what the magical equivalent of brain shock therapy was? Maybe it was a bloody miracle that Lupin was half as normal as he appeared to be.   
  
"He's never said anything about it before." Sirius turned at Peter's voice and took in the kid's confused expression. "I mean, it's not like we're best mates or anything-"   
  
"He's just odd," Sirius shrugged. "We'd better make sure the crazy bastard's not in the lav drowning himself." With a groan, he crawled to his feet. Let the house elves take care of the mess Remus made. Peter shrugged a shoulder and followed suit.   
  
"He's really not that bad a sort," Peter shot him a sideways glance.   
  
"If you say so."   
  
*****_


	5. 5

*****

  
"What about these?" Remus tossed a pair of trousers and a pullover on Peter's bed, and reluctantly Peter pulled both items into his hands. If he hadn't believed that Remus was colorblind before now, this definitely would have gone a long way to changing his mind. The fact that Remus even owned a pair of purple trousers said something. The fact that Remus thought they would match his bright orange pullover said something else entirely.   
  
"Why don't you just sit down and let me pick out your outfit, okay?" Peter suggested mildly, crawling off his bed and moving over to Remus' drawers.   
  
"Thanks Peter." Remus threw him a lopsided grin before flopping carelessly on Peter's bed.   
  
"No problem," he grinned back. He really liked this time of the morning. Black and James were off showering so the atmosphere in the room was noticeably less tense. That and he genuinely liked hanging out with Remus. "Put these on." He tossed Remus a pair of khaki trousers and a gray shirt.   
  
"You're the best, Pete." The goofy smile was back on Remus' face, and Peter almost groaned out loud. Generally that expression meant that Remus was about to get himself into a ton of trouble. Although god only knew why Remus would want to make trouble. "Whatcha got going on today?"   
  
"We have the same classes," Peter reminded him, grinning. Which only made Remus roll his eyes. He wasn't sure why, but Remus was intent on thinking that Peter had some sort of covert social life. Which Peter could have assured him wasn't even remotely the case. Contrary to the image Remus seemed to have of him, Peter did not spend his weekends putting cherry bombs in toilets or his week nights flying solo secret missions for the government on a broomstick.   
  
Although, he had to admit there was a certain appeal to the lifestyle Remus liked to conjure for him.   
  
"No, I meant tonight. It's another mission, isn't it? You're going to fly over the Ural Mountains to deliver a top secret parchment to a fellow double agent amongst the giants, right? Sergi, wasn't it?"   
  
Only Remus could make giants seem somewhat glamorous. And only Remus would be able to picture Peter talking to one. Hell, Peter could even picture that.   
  
"Actually, I think I'm going to be writing a top secret Defense Against the Dark Arts essay that my evil professor is going to be grading tomorrow. He tends to think I need to improve my grammar and research my points a bit more if I'm going to survive to lead a mission filled life in the next year," Peter joked softly. He could only be this way with Remus, it seemed.   
  
"I know of Agent Longbottom," Remus nodded sagely, "and as far as double agents go, he's a right bastard. Very much a back-stabber. My advice to you, Agent Pettigrew, would be to not trust him with any sensitive information. It might mean your death."   
  
It always amazed Peter that Remus could spit out things like that with a completely serious face. Although, he got the impression that Remus wasn't terribly happy with Longbottom. Usually Remus said something about Longbottom being a double agent student in disguise and to not take anything the man said seriously.   
  
"Remus?"   
  
"Mrghfh?" Remus pulled the shirt over his head and looked over at him inquisitively.   
  
"Could you," he swallowed hard, "maybe help me with my essay? I mean, you do get really good grades in that class," Peter trailed off uncertainly.   
  
"Oh, Peter," Remus' face fell and Peter immediately regretted asking. Of course Remus wouldn't want to spend extra time working on homework that wasn't even his.   
  
"Never mind," he spit out quickly before Remus had a chance to say anything else.  
  
"No, Pete, you don't understand," Remus sighed heavily. "My-my mum's sick again. I'm not going to be around tonight, and I probably won't be back until Thursday or Friday depending on how good or bad off she is." Remus looked distinctly uncomfortable.   
  
"Is she," Peter paused to rethink the question, "she's going to be alright, isn't she?" Peter asked softly. "I mean, she's sick an awful lot, Remus-"  
  
"She'll be fine."   
  
Funny, but to Peter's ears, it didn't sound that way at all.   
  
*****  
  
Remus growled and backed up farther into the corner underneath his dusty bed as Longbottom tried once more to pull him out from his hiding place of choice. If Longbottom had just butted out like Remus had asked him to, it wouldn't have come to this.   
  
"Remus, we don't have time for this," Longbottom sounded thoroughly exasperated, but Remus didn't really care. So what if Longbottom was a bit put off with him at the moment? Remus had bigger worries to wrestle with, like knowing exactly what kind of pain he was going to be in tonight and knowing that there was no way to halt time or stop it from happening.   
  
"I don't know about you, but I've got all the time in the world," he huffed as Longbottom grabbed an ankle and tried pulling him out. Remus stubbornly kept his arms wrapped around the leg of his bed, refusing to give in to Longbottom's efforts. He had exactly forty minutes before the moon rose in the sky. It would take ten minutes at most to get out of the castle and maybe another five to get from the base of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack.   
  
And the less time he had to sit by himself in the depressing main room of the shack, the better. Looking at all the furniture he'd destroyed as his alter ego, seeing the boarded up windows and then having nothing to do but sit and wait for the moon to rise left him all but crawling out of his own skin. It wouldn't be so bad if he could forget the pain between full moons.   
  
But he knew exactly how much it was going to hurt. He knew that he was going to hear his bones snapping and reknitting. He knew that the pain, the sheer throbbing of his body as it tried to change shapes, would alternately steal his breath away and force him to scream so loudly that it hurt even his own eardrums to listen. And he knew that in the morning, he'd wake up to the change feeling as if someone had poured turpentine over his skin and lit a match to it. Changing hurt like fucking hell. Was it any wonder that he didn't particularly like going to the shack and didn't particularly relish the idea of preparing for the full moon?   
  
He'd told the professor that he could make it to the shack by himself. He didn't need some back-stabbing adult to hold his hand like he was a snot-nosed baby, and he most certainly did not need a warden to make sure that he ended up in the shack before the change. He knew exactly how dangerous a werewolf could be, after all. He had the fucking scars to prove it. Besides, the way Remus figured it, he might as well get used to doing this business by himself. It wasn't as if Longbottom was going to be here next year to mollycoddle him.   
  
"Remus J. Lupin! If you do not get out from under that bed in the next five seconds, I'll-I'll use magic!"   
  
Remus made a face to keep from laughing. Longbottom was getting desperate. "Do your worst."   
  
"Er, Professor Longbottom," Peter tentatively interrupted, and Remus winced. This was going to take some interesting explaining later, he imagined. "Maybe you should just leave Remus here. I know his mum's sick and all, but if he doesn't want to go," Peter trailed off uncertainly.   
  
"He doesn't get a choice in the matter," Longbottom ground out, and Remus tried kicking the hands wrapped around his ankle as the professor gave a wrenching tug.   
  
"What's going on?" Black's voice came from the vicinity of the door, and Remus held back a groan. Why didn't they just make a party out of this? "Oh, never mind, Lupin's involved. That pretty much explains everything."   
  
"Fuck off, Black, no one asked you!" Remus hollered from under his bed, grunting as Longbottom gave another wrenching pull.   
  
"Oh Jesus, I don't even want to know."   
  
"Well good, because no one's offering to tell you, Potter," Remus growled as Potter butted his big nose in with the rest.   
  
He wondered what it would have been like if he'd met the same fate that Potter's mother had. Of course he'd rather have not met the werewolf at all that particular night. But since he had, maybe it wouldn't have been all that much of a tragedy if he'd died instead. After all, it was a hell of tragedy for his parents to have to live with and raise a chronically diseased child. An inhuman child.   
  
"Why don't you boys go on down to the common room and let me deal with this," Longbottom tried to diffuse the situation diplomatically, and Remus could see his three dormmates shift their feet reluctantly. He watched Peter's shoes move closer to the bed, though, instead of towards the door. Moments later, Peter's face appeared as the other boy bent down to get a better look.   
  
"Maybe you really should go with him, Remus," Peter offered hesitantly. Of all the times for Peter to stick up for him. Remus shot him a pained look as he kicked at Longbottom's grappling hands again.   
  
"I don't _want_ to go with _him. I'd rather run around the great hall at noon naked as a jaybird."   
  
"It can't be as bad as that, can it?" The incredulity in Peter's voice made it clear that the other boy didn't understand why he was protesting this so hard.   
  
"You have no idea, Pete."  
  
As if Peter would ever have a clue. As if any of them would, his back-stabbing Defense Against the Dark Arts professor included. It was like expecting a lion to understand what it might be like to be a wolf. They were human, and he wasn't. Even if his dormmates weren't aware of that particular fact, it didn't change things.   
  
"Peter, James, Sirius? Leave. Now." Well, it looked like Longbottom had finally decided to forgo diplomacy. Peter reluctantly climbed to his feet, and Remus saw the three of them head for the door. "Remus, get out from under there."   
  
"No," Remus snarled. "I don't need your help. Just go away." Longbottom scowled at him before letting go of Remus' ankle abruptly, causing Remus to fall back with a thump against the leg of the bed he was holding so tightly.   
  
"This isn't a joke, you only have a short time before the moon rises, and try to understand that I'm responsible for everyone's well being in this instance, yours included," Longbottom muttered angrily with a tired sigh before pulling out his wand, aiming it at Remus, and muttering a simple summoning spell. Remus felt himself scoot across the floor. Longbottom reached over and grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him up onto his feet and pulling the fabric tight as the man got a good, solid grip._

"Finite Incantatem," Frank muttered, and Remus was in total control of his limbs once again.

"Let me go!" He twisted violently in Longbottom's grasp, but the professor wasn't about to make the same mistake twice, it seemed. As it was, Remus realized he was probably lucky that Longbottom hadn't strangled him while he'd been so complacent. 

"I've had about all I'm going to take from you, tonight, Brat." The words were emphasized with a jerk as Longbottom all but dragged him to the door. "You, of all people, should know how dangerous tonight's little stunt could have been. What were you thinking?" 

  
"Fuck off," He growled softly as Longbottom pulled him down the dorm stairs. They silently made their way through the common room. Remus only wished that the same could have been said for his dormmates.   
  
"Have fun in detention…" Potter mocked in a bright, cheery voice, and Remus tried lunging at him, but Longbottom's grasp was unbreakable.   
  
"You're just lucky they didn't haul you off sooner," Black added, looking oddly sympathetic, which was surprisingly more infuriating to Remus than if Sirius had simply joined in on the taunting. "You'll feel better when you get back. It's not like you're _that_ crazy." Fuck, if anyone was a couple sandwiches short, it was Black. Not him!   
  
Longbottom didn't give him much of a chance to offer any sort of retaliation though, as the man forcefully pulled him through the portrait door. "Look, Remus, I realize that it's not easy. But you have to understand that you don't have a choice in this, you have to take these precautions. It's the only way that the headmaster is willing to keep you here."   
  
Remus glared at him as the anger flushed his face. The man just wanted to shove Remus in the shack, shut the door, and then pat himself on the back for a job well done. He wondered if the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor felt a rush of pride in being able to tame and subdue a dangerous eleven-year-old werewolf. It had to be right up there with successfully catching a cute, fluffy crup. Maybe the headmaster would give Longbottom points for outsmarting Remus and containing the threat of a dark creature run amok.   
  
"So what are you, my fucking babysitter? I didn't ask you to hold my hand through all of this. I would have gone to the shack all by myself. I don't need you," Remus tried jerking away again, but Longbottom just hauled him back up against his side.   
  
"Well, guess what, you have me anyway. So buck up and face the music," Longbottom hissed between his teeth, a sure indication that his patience was hanging on by a very thin thread. Not that Remus cared.   
  
"Oh yeah, I've got you to support me," Remus mocked. "Color me lucky. Aren't I just the envy of all the first years."   
  
"I've done nothing but be supportive of you from the start," Longbottom lectured as they passed through the main doors and headed across the grass. "One would think that you'd give a little less lip."   
  
"Oh please, like you're actually doing this because you care about me." Remus felt fully entitled to yell out that particular accusation since they were both outside now. "You're just like every other professor here. Bet it was fun for you, having your own pet werewolf for a while. What did you expect me to do, bark on command?"   
  
"You are the most exasperating brat. I don't know where you get these ideas," Longbottom sighed as he tiredly pointed his wand and muttered a spell that froze the Whomping Willow.   
  
"Me either. Crazy isn't it, how I thought you were actually cool. I actually thought I could trust you. Yeah, well, you sure proved me wrong. You're just doing your job. Next year, you'll be gone and I'll be someone else's problem, won't I?"   
  
This time, Remus had no problems pulling out of Longbottom's grasp and careening into the tunnel. He all but ran to the shack, conscious of the fact that Longbottom wouldn't dare follow him. At least it was one small consolation.   
  
They let him be in pain in peace.

*****


	6. 6

*****

"I'm telling you, they take him away and give him shocks to the brain," Sirius explained as if it were the most rational idea in the world. This was probably one of the best things about Sirius, James decided. Sirius seemed like the average run-of-the–mill first year at a casual glance, but every once in a while, the kid would do or say something that really drove home the fact that he wasn't average or really even all that normal.   
  
"They're not shocking his brain, Black. That doesn't make any sense." James turned at the sound of Peter's voice, and saw that the smaller boy had been eavesdropping on their conversation and was now giving them both skeptical glances. James frowned back in response.   
  
Peter wasn't exactly the kind of kid to butt his nose in where it wasn't wanted. In fact, Peter usually left them to their own devices and never really tried to offer anything to the conversation, even when he and Sirius had bothered to try and include him. If Lupin hadn't already been nominated as the resident weirdo, the prize definitely would have gone to Peter instead. Which was probably why the kid was sticking up for Lupin. The two of them probably had a lot in common.   
  
"It makes perfect sense," Sirius returned defensively. Normally, James would have backed him, whether Sirius had been right or wrong. But agreeing with Sirius' odd idea right now wouldn't get them to the bottom of what was really going on with their nutty dormmate.   
  
"Sirius," he tried to interrupt.   
  
"No, really, it makes sense. Lupin's crazy so they have to take him away every once in a while and try to fix his head."   
  
James tried not to let that explanation boggle his mind too much. "I really don't think-"  
  
"He's not crazy," Peter piped in indignantly. "Sure, he's not like everyone else, but so what? That's not why he's absent so much. And anyway, who gets shocks to the brain for being crazy?"   
  
"There's a whole ward for crazy people at St. Mungos," James decided to interject before Sirius could retort. Chances were Sirius' theory was colored by how things happened in the Muggle world. "Crazy people who can't be cured live there, and those who are only slightly crazy have to talk to counselors. At the most, they only cast calming charms, they don't do brain shocks or whatever." He didn't add how he knew that. He really didn't think that they needed to know anything about the month he'd spent at St. Mungos after his mother's death or the year that he'd spent talking to counselors after that.   
  
"So where the hell does the little shrimp go all the time?" Sirius demanded, a bit put out, James assumed, at having his idea shot down. As it was, he was looking at James as if James should somehow have the answer to the problem.   
  
Since he had no clue what was wrong with Lupin, he just shrugged his shoulders. To be honest, he really hadn't paid that much attention. Sure Lupin was absent here and there, but so were other kids. There was that one Ravenclaw who'd been out of classes for almost a whole month because he'd caught some sort of flu from one of the potions that they'd been working on. And there was almost always some kid or another up in the Infirmary for a day or two because of some prank gone awry or a Quidditch accident.   
  
He really hadn't thought that Lupin's absences were all that noteworthy until after he'd walked in on Longbottom trying to pull the git out from under his own bed.   
  
"He always tells me he's visiting his mum because she's sick," Peter offered tentatively. The three of them lapsed into silence, contemplating that bit of information.   
  
Personally, James didn't see how Lupin's mother being sick got Lupin out of school and out of classes. Sure, the headmaster would send a kid home if a relative died or something, but James didn't think that the headmaster would send someone home just because their parent was sick. Maybe if it had only been for one visit, it might have been a different story, but Lupin was absent way too much for that explanation to make sense.   
  
"He has to be lying then. The headmaster would never send him home so often because of something like that. And besides that, if his mum were sick, wouldn't he _want_ to go home?" That seemed to stump Peter for a moment.   
  
"So if he isn't seeing his sick mum," Sirius let the question go unasked.   
  
"Maybe she is sick," Peter returned carefully, "but not in the way we think of her being sick."   
  
"How else would she be sick then?" Sirius returned sarcastically.   
  
"She could be vampire," Peter shot back in annoyance.   
  
"A what?" James could hear the disbelief in his own voice. And he'd thought that Sirius' guess at what was wrong with Lupin was strange, he rolled his eyes. If left alone long enough, these two would have Lupin being held prisoner in a veela camp outside of Austria.   
  
"No, it makes sense, James," Sirius bounced on the bed the two of them were sitting on excitedly. "Remember what Longbottom said last week when we went over that chapter on vampires? He said that they prefer the blood of relatives over anything else. He said something about it lasting longer," Sirius waved a hand impatiently as if waiting for James to see the logic.   
  
James still thought that it was a bit of a stretch. "So you're saying that the headmaster makes Lupin go home all the time so his mother can suck his blood? I don't think so."   
  
"But think about it," Peter jumped in, "he always seems so sluggish and depressed after he's been absent. And he has all those turtlenecks he wears all the time. It could be to cover the fang marks."   
  
"And sometimes he's got scratches all over his face. If his mother's fingernails are anything like my mother's," Sirius trailed off, throwing a knowing glance in James' direction.   
  
"Maybe," he admitted reluctantly. He couldn't really explain what was so wrong with their idea, but it just didn't seem right. "I still don't think the headmaster would make him go home to get his blood sucked." Sirius and Peter fell back into silence as they thought over that point.   
  
"Maybe," Sirius started, "no, never mind, that doesn't work."   
  
"I just don't think his mum's a vampire," James reiterated.   
  
"Maybe the reason they make him go home is because it's the only way to keep her alive," Peter offered softly.   
  
"But we just spent last week learning how to kill vampires. If she were a vampire, they wouldn't be trying to keep her alive," James argued back. "They'd want her to die-"   
  
"But she's still his mum, James," Sirius interrupted. "Would you want someone to just kill your mum, or would you just let your mum die if you knew you could stop that from happening?"   
  
The question hit him harder than he'd thought it should have. Would he do something like what they were suggesting Lupin did? Would he have done that for his mum? Would he have saved her, despite the fact that she'd have been a dark creature?   
  
Could he have saved his mum?   
  
"You really think his mum's a vampire?" He asked in a small voice.   
  
"You have to admit, it does make sense," Peter answered as he climbed off his bed and walked over to James' bed. "I know I wouldn't be too thrilled about going home if I knew that my mum was going to be sucking my blood, but I would have ended up going anyway. And Professor Longbottom would know all the ways to kill a vampire. That might have been why Remus didn't want to go with him."   
  
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Sirius nodded in agreement to Peter's words, "but it does make sense. I wouldn't want the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor hanging out around me if I thought he was going to kill my mum."   
  
"Remus has been really mad at Professor Longbottom lately," Peter let the suggestion trail off.   
  
"It works," Sirius agreed, "he's been hacked off at Longbottom since we started covering that chapter on vampires."   
  
James frowned. He knew Lupin was angry at Longbottom. It didn't take a genius to see that since Remus had taken every opportunity lately to snip at the professor during class and make smart mouthed remarks. But it had been going on a lot longer than a week, to James way of thinking. Lupin had been acting that way almost since they'd started back to classes after break.   
  
"There's only one way to know for sure," he announced, sizing up Peter as he did so. Sirius wouldn't be a problem. He knew he could count on his friend to agree to the idea. It was part of what made being around Sirius so fun. The kid was always up for a bit of mischief. "We'll have to get Lupin's school records."   
  
"Good idea," Sirius acknowledged.   
  
"What?" Peter yelped slightly, looking at the both of them as if they'd just lost their minds. "We can't do that. We'll get caught."   
  
"What, are you scared or something?" Sirius taunted lightly.   
  
"No," Peter retorted with a fierce frown. "I just don't feel like spending the rest of my life in detention."   
  
"Don't worry, Peter, I'll make sure we won't get caught," James tried to reassure. From the look on Peter's face though, it was obvious that the other boy didn't entirely trust him or Sirius. "I promise, it'll be a quick. We'll just grab his file, take a small peak at it to see if it says anything about his mum, and then we'll leave," he added, trying to put on his most trustworthy face.   
  
"I don't know-"  
  
"Or you could just stay here," James offered casually, "and we'll go take a look at his file." That seemed to make up Peter's mind.   
  
"I'm going. Knowing you two, you'd probably do something really mean. Like change his file so that he'll get in trouble." The look of distrust was still on the kid's features, but there was also a look of determination there too, and that was enough for James.   
  
"We wouldn't do something like that to the nutter," Sirius muttered under his breath to James as they all scrambled to put their shoes on. "We may not like him, but we aren't _mean_."   
  
Well, Sirius might not do something like that to Lupin, James acknowledged. But he wasn't too sure about himself. The little bastard irritated him beyond belief. And damned if he'd forgive the pipsqueak for the haircut or for the things he'd said during break. If anyone deserved to be taken down a peg or two, it was Lupin.   
  
Although, to be truthful, James wasn't entirely sure of how he'd feel if Peter's theory turned out to be correct. Would it really change anything?

*****

"Oh, fuck!"   
  
Generally, Sirius found it terribly amusing when people like Peter swore. Goody-goods who tripped over words like 'piss' or 'twat' just failed to sound convincing in any way, shape or form when they attempted to graduate to more tried and true swears. And usually Peter was no exception. His face would pucker and turn red when he attempted anything more salty than 'damn'.   
  
Now, however, Sirius decided that Peter had just jumped a level in learning how to effectively swear. "Don't just stand there," he hissed more than a little desperately. "Help me." 

"Okay, okay. All right, here grab my hand." Nervous babble aside, Sirius had never been more grateful that Peter had decided to come along on this little adventure. If he hadn't, then Sirius wouldn't have even caught this stupid railing when the stairwell they were standing on had swung away from the landing so abruptly. "Damn, you're heavy."   
  
"You're not exactly a light weight yourself," Sirius retorted in between huffs of air as he scrambled back up onto the solid stone. He wasn't even going to turn around to look. He'd just escaped death, he was sure. The ground floor was only three stories down. "Where's James?"   
  
"He stayed with the stairwell." Peter was looking just about as shaky as he felt, Sirius noted, grinning wryly.   
  
"No sense of adventure, that one." He shrugged, dusting his pajamas off. This certainly was going to put a crimp in their plans. It would be ages before the stairwell swung back over this way, and knowing his luck, if they just sat and waited, they'd get caught. Or he'd get extremely bored, which was pretty much as bad as getting caught.   
  
"Yeah, I know, daft bugger. Not attempting to leap five feet across thin air three stories up. Infinitely too cautious, that one." Peter rolled his eyes, and Sirius found himself biting back a laugh. Well, who knew? The nerd did have a sense of humor.   
  
"I suppose. All right. I think we go this way," he announced as he climbed to his feet and pointed down yet another long, dark hallway. Peter shot him a pained glance, which in all honesty, he'd been expecting.   
  
"Can we just sit for a minute? I think you scared about six years off my life."   
  
"You sound like my mum." Sighing, he plopped back down. It probably couldn't hurt. Although, if he were going to be stuck out after hours in parts of the castle he'd never explored before, he'd rather have been with someone other than Peter.   
  
"Shut up." As far as comebacks were concerned, Peter had some of the lamest. Twirling his wand idly between his fingers, he ignored the other boy and lay back on the stone floor, looking up at the murals painted on the rather gothic looking ceiling. The silence would have been deafening if Peter's heavy breathing weren't there as a distraction, he noted with a small frown. "Black?"   
  
"Yellow?" The prat had just pulled him up from certain death, after all. It was silly really that he kept insisting on calling him Black.   
  
"What?"   
  
Sirius rolled his eyes and sat up. "Just call me Sirius."   
  
"Oh." Peter seemed momentarily taken aback by that, but Sirius chalked it up to the idea that the prat wasn't used to having friends. The only person Peter deigned worthy of conversation was Lupin. "Um, Sirius, do you, that is, do you really hate Remus?"   
  
Hate Lupin? "No, not really." He shrugged almost indifferently. "I don't really know him all that well. It's more that he just irritates me, sometimes."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Look, it's not like I didn't try to be friends, okay?" he snapped defensively before sighing in frustration. "Besides that, he's so," Sirius broke off gesturing wildly. "He acts like the fucking world revolves around him. Which, it doesn't. So what if he has a bad day? Who cares? Everyone has bad days, and you don't see them streaking through the halls or casting curses and cutting people's hair."  
  
"Or dumping messed up potions on their partner's heads," Peter interjected sardonically.   
  
"Exactly!" Sirius huffed indignantly.   
  
"Sure, everyone has bad days. Sometimes they decide to blow up every potion they make in class, despite their partner's attempts to stop them. Or they decide they need to flood the lav down in the dungeons and lose the house points. Or better yet, they decide that we should attempt to break into the Headmaster's office and steal files." Peter propped his chin on his hand lazily as he raised an eyebrow at Sirius.   
  
"Screw you," Sirius snapped back irritably.   
  
"Give him a break," Peter said softly. "If his mum is a vampire-"   
  
"So what if she is? That's not an excuse. Mine acts like a bloody harpy on steroids, and you don't see me asking for special favors, do you?" Sirius scowled and Peter shifted uncomfortably.   
  
"Sorry." As far as apologies went, it probably wasn't the most sincere one Sirius had ever heard, but he supposed he could let it slide. Peter did have a point. A very, very small one, he assured himself, but it was still a point.   
  
"What's so great about Lupin, anyway?"   
  
Peter seemed to contemplate the question for a moment before shrugging. "I dunno, he's just fun. And crazy. And completely unpredictable. And he doesn't think I'm a nerd." Peter shot a pointed look at Sirius.   
  
"Yeah, well okay." He shrugged off the unspoken accusation uncomfortably. "You ready to get going _now_?"   
  
"We're going back to the dorms, right?"   
  
"What?" Sirius managed his best cheeky grin. "It's too early to go back to the dorms. Besides, we have to find James, don't we? Buck up. It won't be _that bad."  
  
"_Sirius_." It sounded like a cross between a plea and a whine, Sirius reflected with a laugh as he headed boldly down the dark hallway, letting Peter follow behind him.   
  
*****_


	7. 7

*****

As far as James Potter could tell, being an adult was more a state of mind than anything else. And the way he figured it, even at the measly age of eleven, he was an adult. There was a long list of reasons as to why this was that he kept in his head.   
  
He dressed himself. He took care of his own personal hygiene. When he was at home, he cooked his own meals and set his own bedtime. He knew how to make sure the house stayed clean and he made sure that the cupboards stayed stocked. He made sure his father kept the bills paid and that he came out of the study every once in a while to sleep, eat, and shower. The only thing he really couldn't do was earn the money his father made.   
  
In spite of that, he felt very much like an adult inside, even though on the outside he looked like a half grown kid.   
  
After all, if it had been Peter caught out here after hours wandering the castle halls by himself, things would have been very different. James seriously doubted at times that the bloke could even walk himself to class, Peter seemed that unsure of himself. Or, at least, that was why James figured Peter had decided to latch on to someone as obviously out of touch with reality as Lupin was.   
  
Yeah, James decided, he was much better off than Peter would have been. Probably even Sirius too, because James knew how to take care of himself without much fuss.   
  
Because, if anything, James was good at survival.   
  
Which was why he assured himself that the dark halls did not scare him. Nor did the eerie howls in the far distance raise the hairs on the back of his neck. And, of course, the full moon was nothing but a big bright light in the sky that allowed him to walk through the hallways without the aid of his wand.   
  
Too bad that a small part of him was still quaking in his pajamas.   
  
Frowning hard, he walked down the last corridor he'd chosen only to discover that he'd reached one of the thousands of service doors that led outside. He hadn't even realized he'd made it onto the first floor.   
  
On the upside, he now knew exactly where he was in the castle. On the downside, he still was separated from Sirius and Peter. He couldn't, in good faith, go back to the dorms without them. He'd never hear the end of it, from Sirius at least, if he fled up to the safety of his curtained bed like a baby. No doubt Peter would share his cowardly retreat with Lupin, as well, and god only knew that was going to lead to unwanted bloodshed.   
  
Looking at the stupid door, he tried to screw up his courage. Part of being an adult was understanding that no matter what happened or who he was with, inevitably, he was always alone. Here today, gone tomorrow, as the saying went. Depending on someone else was stupid. Maybe all the other snot nosed kids waited around for some adult to take pity on them and make them feel better, but not James. Unlike Lupin, he'd figured out that adults, as a whole, didn't give a damn unless there was something in it for them. He could jump around and demand their attention like Lupin, but in the end, it only got a bloke hurt when they demonstrated that they were only out for their own interests.   
  
James wouldn't have been hurt by Longbottom's callous desertion. He never would have mistaken Longbottom's easy going chatter for genuine affection, because James had known from the start that it was already affection that was bought and paid for in the teacher salary package. Maybe on some level, Longbottom actually felt something for Lupin, but even then, it was just as insubstantial as the man's position in the school.   
  
Here today, gone when it suits them.   
  
In fact, the way he saw it, most of the world was like that. Sighing, James decided he wouldn't be at all surprised if Sirius and Peter had made their way straight back to the dorms after their untimely separation. Peter had probably bawled hysterically after Sirius's rather daredevil jump across the stairwell.   
  
But then again, Sirius was a strange kind of bloke. James was half convinced that Sirius didn't know the meaning of the word fear. Hell, if he were here now, he'd die laughing at James's hesitation over a bloody howl on the wind and a couple of dark hallways.   
  
Sirius wouldn't have been scared of going outside. Sirius wasn't scared of a blasted thing.   
  
Hesitantly, he pushed open the door and peered beyond the hedges that lined the castle wall before he slipped farther out. So what if the castle bordered the Forbidden Forest, right? It wasn't like dangerous dark creatures had complete run of the castle grounds. He was safe here. It was a blasted school, for hell's sake. If he couldn't be safe at school, then where could he be safe?   
  
But then again, he thought that home could be a safe place, too.   
  
And, not for the first time, James felt his face heat up with anger. So he was all alone. Big deal. He didn't need someone holding his hand. So what if there were funny animals growling out in the Forbidden Forest? God only knew he'd faced worse. He wasn't scared of some stupid moon in the sky. And he wasn't afraid to walk outside unprotected under its light. He was an adult. And fuck anyone or anything that suggested otherwise.   
  
An utterly inhuman scream echoed loudly across the lake, rousing what seemed to be about half of the Forbidden Forest in response. Gooseflesh creeped up his arms as the sound triggered memory after memory. He _knew exactly what had made that sound.   
  
Shuddering hard as the monster screeched once more, he clapped his hands over his ears.   
  
There was no way in a million years that Sirius would have been able to convince Peter to come outside the castle walls, James decided suddenly. How dumb had he been to even think it a possibility?   
  
Whirling around he tried to run back into the castle only to collide with something warm and solid as the beast in the distance screamed. James tried to scream himself, but his voice caught in his throat as he scrambled to get out of the grip of the beast that had apparently appeared behind him when he hadn't been paying attention.   
  
"Thought you'd do a bit of exploring on your own, eh?"   
  
James's head whipped up fast at that, and he almost fell to the ground in relief as the crotchety caretaker's face came into focus. "Got lost," he managed to croak out as the man leered down at him, reeking of garlic.   
  
"You'll regret ever having ventured out tonight, I'm sure. Useless brats, the whole lot of you. Always skulking about sniveling and ruining all my hard work. Hope your little prank was worth it, because your hide will be mine for the next fortnight."   
  
"I wasn't planning a prank," he managed to make himself blurt out as his heart beat slowly started to return to normal.   
  
"That's what they all say," the caretaker gestured wildly, drawing James's attention to what had most likely brought the man outside in the first place.   
  
"I-I wasn't feeling well."   
  
"So now you're going to tell me you were searching for the infirmary?"   
  
On the whole, James considered himself a rather non-squeamish type of bloke. He could prank with the best of them. He could feasibly eat pond scum on a dare and touch dragon feces if his manhood was called into question.   
  
But the two rabbits that the caretaker held in hands? James could handle blood. He could even handle seeing some of the gorier quidditch accident woundings. But blood dripping off of two lifeless rabbits as they stared blankly at him? Looking at two rabbits who hung by their ears and hearing the slight plip-plop noise of blood splashing on the stone step? Seeing two creatures that looked as if they'd been mauled by a mad dog?   
  
He nodded dully at the caretaker's question as the blood roared in his own ears, and then lost all of what had once been dinner on the man's mud stained shoes._

*****

"Oh, _Remus_."   
  
It was the sharp intake of breath, Remus decided, that really clued him in to the fact that he must have made an absolute hash of himself this moon. Sure, on a certain level, he knew he was hurting like hell. And yeah, his overly sensitive nose could pick up the metallic, sticky tang of his own blood.   
  
In truth, though, he'd had a hard time mustering up the energy to even care. If the world weren't already gray, he would have suspected that it had turned gray merely because he felt so lifeless.   
  
"You put your foot in it this time," Longbottom's words were accompanied with a heavy sigh, and Remus deigned to open an eye to look at the concerned face of his professor as the man bent down to his level.   
  
"I don't need your help." The words sounded scratchy and making them made his eyes water as the sound rubbed at an apparently already raw throat.   
  
"Because you don't mind bleeding to death on the floor? Hm, thanks but I think you rather do need my help."   
  
Remus let his tired eyelid slam back down, shutting out the image of the man as he scraped under Remus's limp body and hauled him up. He supposed Longbottom had him there. He rather did need the bastard's help. Although, he couldn't help but think sometimes that it wouldn't be that big of a deal if he did bleed to death on the floor.   
  
After all, no one was going to hold his hand next year. And he doubted that anyone would be particularly accommodating after he left school. The rest of the world certainly wasn't going to cut him any slack, and if that was the case, then in theory, he really ought to get used to bleeding all over everything by himself with only himself to clean it up and make things better.   
  
It wasn't like his lycanthropy was going to just go away. Everyone else was.   
  
Would it really be that bad to bleed to death? He was so tired. He was tired of trying to fit in, he was tired of being lied to, and he was tired of being a werewolf.   
  
"Look," Longbottom sighed heavily at about the same time that Remus felt the cool, damp air of the morning hit his skin. "I know it's difficult being different than everyone else."   
  
Different? _That_ made Remus open both eyes and muster up the energy to sneer at Longbottom's concerned face. "You know?" This time he had to cough as the words rasped at the back of his throat. People who flooded lavs for the hell of it were different. People who could talk about Quidditch until his ears bled were different. People who asked the class outcast for help on their Defense homework were different. He was not merely _different_. He was his own bloody species. The service door into the castle came into view, and Longbottom moved through it with a flick of his wand, as he seemed to be pondering Remus's question.   
  
"I know it can't be easy," Longbottom started. "And I know it's not going to get any easier."   
  
As if the man even had a clue.   
  
"Like you care."   
  
"Brat," Longbottom said easily as Remus let his eyes slide shut one more time. He was just so damned sick and tired of the whole thing. "I do care. You have a chance here. You deserve a chance here."   
  
Maybe this was the biggest thing he hated about people knowing. He wasn't a person to Longbottom. Or, at the very least, it didn't seem like he was a person to the good Professor. He was a just a cause. Or an interesting field study. It was hard to say which, really.   
  
He'd been able to relax around Longbottom. He'd been able to joke around, and it had seemed like Longbottom seriously hadn't minded that for one night out of the month Remus could literally rip him to shreds and devour his flesh with absolutely no feelings of remorse. Longbottom was supposed to be an ally. Someone who really _did_ understand that it was hard and why it was so difficult for a werewolf to masquerade as a normal well-adjusted student.   
  
Instead, Longbottom had seen him as a quick way to get some auror training in before he moved away from the snot-nosed kids of Hogwarts to the bigger and better things involved in hunting down dark creatures and criminals. In a way, Remus was sure that he'd betrayed some of the greatest secrets his species kept to the very person who was likely to become their judge, jailer and executioner.   
  
Oh yeah, he was thrilled that Longbottom had taken a chance to get to know him. To dupe him. And wasn't Remus just so glad he'd taken a chance on this school. On himself and on believing that he could make it work, despite the fact that no werewolf before him had been able to.   
  
"I didn't ask for a chance," Remus muttered back sullenly, opening his eyes enough to take in the steps and the door to the infirmary. He hadn't asked to become a werewolf. He didn't ask for this affliction, and there wasn't a damn thing anywhere that said he had to accept his lycanthropy with grace. He didn't have to like it. Which was good, because he fucking hated it. He didn't have to make the best of it, because it was his life to screw up, thank you very much.   
  
So someone, somewhere had decided to give the dangerous dark creature a chance. What? Did they expect him to grovel in appreciation? Did they think that they were doing him a favor by forcing him to live in a world that he knew he most certainly did _not_ belong in? Fat Chance.   
  
He let his head loll back as Longbottom hoisted him up slightly to get a better grip as they walked through to the center of the infirmary. Out of the corner of his eye, Remus caught the flutter of fabric, and without drawing attention to the fact that he was trying to get a better look, he craned his neck slightly, until his eyes met another pair hidden across the room.   
  
Potter.   
  
Well, hell, wasn't that just perfect. Potter was just everything he wasn't and was never going to be. The irony was not lost on him, for once.   
  
"Sometimes, Remus, you are the most ungrateful little snot I've ever had the pleasure of teaching." Longbottom's voice made him break eye contact with his mortal enemy for a moment. Ungrateful. Because, obviously, he should be kissing some serious arse since they'd deigned to allow him to do what every other magical child in the country was entitled to. Fuck that.   
  
Peter aside, he was never going to fit in at this school. The Headmaster knew it. The kids knew it. The professors knew it. And Remus was certain that even Longbottom knew it too, since the man wasn't going to stay more than a lousy year to see how his year group progressed up to the next level. Fine. He didn't want to be a part of it all, anyway.   
  
Glaring, he found Potter's eyes across the room as the sneaky bastard crouched down behind one of the unmade hospital beds. He'd never fit in like Potter. That was the whole point. "Well, yeah, you know us werewolves," he smirked as Potter's eyes grew wide, "we don't do gratitude all that well."   
  
Longbottom sighed in exasperation, and with a satisfied smile, Remus let his eyes slide shut once more, tuning out the man's frustrated grumbling. His secret was bound to be all but published in the Daily Prophet by the time he made it out of the infirmary this time. He'd spent all this time dreading that the other kids would find out. That they'd discover exactly why they were so justified in treating him like a social leper.   
  
And now that he was sure that they would know within the next couple hours, it felt like someone had taken a couple stone off his shoulders. It was a relief. And it was so heady, that when he started slipping into the oblivion of exhausted, pain-induced sleep, he did so with a smile on his face.   
  
*****


	8. 8

To all of those who, for whatever reason, are still reading this poor beast, my apologies for the long delays between updates. *sweatdrops* 

*****

"Rise and shine, Brat," Frank chirped out with false cheer as he reached over and gently nudged Remus's shoulder. Sometimes, he wasn't even sure why he bothered. It was his free period right now, and he was eons behind in grading. Last night's little debacle had taken a huge dent out of his time, and he had a whole stack of third year essays to grade. 

Remus mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'fuck you' and rolled away from him. Reaching over, Frank easily pulled him back and reached for the pepper up potion Pomfrey had left for the little monster. "Still mad at me, huh?" 

"Yes," Remus muttered back sullenly. 

"Want to tell me why?" 

"No." 

Well, glad they'd cleared that up, Frank sighed. There had been a couple of professors that had sat him down before he'd taken this job and explained to him what some of the pitfalls were, some of the things that he'd have to look out for. The way he had it figured, most of them probably expected a repeat of his seventh year, which wasn't exactly all that long ago. 

But there was a load of difference between being a seventh year and teaching the seventh years—or the rest of the school for that matter. Maybe he shouldn't have ever become quite so chummy with Remus. Maybe he should have maintained a more professional distance from the rug rat. 

But it was a bit too late for 'should have's. Sighing once more, Frank shoved the pepper up potion in Remus's direction. Reluctantly, Remus took it, making a face before chugging the whole thing down. "I don't want you to be mad at me," he decided to come right out and say as he rested his elbows on the edge of the bed. Remus shot him a withering glare. 

"Right, because you care if I'm mad." 

"Why wouldn't I?" Frank had to dodge as the little pit viper threw the cup the potion had been in at his head. The kid had one hell of a temper when he had his dander up, Frank would give him that. 

"Why don't you just cut the nicety-nice crap. You're not going to be here next year, and I don't feel like being your pet project or experiment or, or," the kid's face was turning red, "another chance for you to study for your stupid auror exam. You want to leave? Then leave. I don't care." 

Oh. 

"Hey kid," Frank started off softly, only to break off at the venomous look Remus shot him. He could be pretty thick sometimes, Frank acknowledged as all the little pieces of their arguments these last couple weeks suddenly fell into place. "They only hired me on for the year." 

"Oh please, do I look stupid?" 

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Frank tried to smirk, but the humor was not reflected back in Remus's expression. "I'm only stepping in for the tenured, hired-by-the-governor's-board Defense teacher. She's on maternity leave at the moment." 

"So?" Remus lay back down on the pillows, and Frank could see that the conversation was beginning to sap the poor kid out. There were dark rings around the kid's eyes, and despite the fact that the brat was absolutely insufferable half the time, Frank felt for him at that particular moment. 

"So, even if I wanted to, I couldn't stay on to teach you next year. It's her job. I'm just holding her place, as it were." Remus seemed less than convinced. 

"Yeah, well, whatever," the brat muttered, rolling over once more. 

"You remember what it was like your first day here?" From the way Remus shuddered, Frank guessed that, yes, the kid most certainly did. 

"So what," the kid bit back, flatly as Frank calmly pulled the covers up over the brat's shoulders. 

"So, I think you and I were kind of in the same boat. You didn't know anyone, I didn't know anyone." 

"You are so full of shit. I'm not five, you know."

"Can it, fleabag," Frank snapped back easily. "What I'm trying to say is that we were both out of sorts, and there were a lot of people against us before they'd even attempted to get to know us." 

"Right, I'm sure," Remus scoffed, eyelids drooping. "You're the coolest professor here." 

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, brat, but not everyone sees things the way you see them." Frank managed a chuckle as Remus muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'no kidding' under his breath. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not exactly that much older than the seventh years." 

"You're not ancient. So what?" 

"So, a lot of the other professors thought I was too young for this, and that there would be no way I'd be able to handle the responsibility. Some, even, have been watching and waiting for me to screw up all year."

"Vanacker," Remus yawned, rolling over towards him, and Frank found himself smiling back at the sleepy kid. 

"Yeah, him and a few others. I know you first years like me, but the older kids had Molly last year, and she was a pretty popular professor. Hers is a tough act to follow." 

"I hate her," Remus mumbled, curling into the blankets. 

"You don't even know her," Frank had to point out, with a chuckle. 

"So? People don't know me either, and they hate me." Well, there wasn't much room for Frank to argue the point there, and he knew it. As unfair as it was, that was pretty much the truth. 

"Maybe, but you were the first true friend I had here." 

"I'm eleven. Not stupid." 

"I never said you were," Frank rolled his eyes. "I want you to promise me something, brat." 

"What?" 

"Promise first, and then I'll tell you." 

"No, that's dumb. Tell me first, and then I'll think about it." This kid was a trip, Frank grinned. How it was that so few of the other professors could see it, Frank wasn't sure. On some level, he liked all the kids he taught. But Remus? Well, Remus was special in a lot of ways, the least of which seemed to be the aspect that all the other faculty couldn't get around. 

"Nope, it's all or nothing." 

"Jerk," Remus grumbled, fighting really hard, Frank could see, to stay awake. "Fine. Promise." 

"Good. I want you to write me. At _least _once a month." Remus rolled his eyes, but there was the tiny beginnings of smile tugging at the monster's lips. 

"I'm still mad at you." The words were mostly bluster.

"Hey, no sweat off my back," Frank chuckled as he reached over and ruffled Remus's disheveled hair. "You're one of a kind, kid." 

"Joy." 

And with that, Frank left the kid to sleep off the rest of the day in peace. 

*****

"Professor Longbottom?" James asked quietly, startling the man into dropping the cup of tea and the stack of papers in his hands. 

"_James_?!" In any other circumstance, the look on the young professor's face might have reduced James to tears of mirth, but there wasn't much to laugh at to James's way of thinking. "Where have you been? The whole staff has been beside themselves all day looking for you, and your friends are frantic." 

Maybe part of him really was the spoiled little brat Sirius had called him in a fit of pique once. Because he didn't care that he'd put them out, or that they'd spent so much time worrying. He certainly hadn't asked them to. If they wanted to continue to pretend that he was too young to understand the things that went on around him that was their business. But he was under no obligation to cater to their naïve perceptions of him. 

"Can I ask you something?" he managed. 

"Yes, but let me fire call Dumbledore first, at least," the man said, opening the door from his office that led into a rather Spartan looking sitting room. "Where were you? Why?" Longbottom looked perplexed, and at the expression, James felt his own mood souring. What were adults the only ones who were allowed to get angry and upset and need some time to themselves? 

"I wasn't feeling well, but I didn't want to stay in the infirmary." Well, at least that wasn't a lie, he congratulated himself. It wasn't the whole truth, either though, which was probably just as well because even he wasn't ready to grapple with the whole truth yet. 

He quietly accepted a biscuit from Longbottom and tried to suppress his anger and irritation as Longbottom hastened to reassure the Headmaster that James was okay and accounted for. 

James hated the attention. He hated the constant reminder. He hated that no one was ever brave enough to actually say anything, but that they couldn't seem to do anything more than treat him as if he were fragile as glass. 

Did they really think him that weak? How? How the hell could they think that? Maybe he wasn't Hercules, but he wasn't exactly drooling in St. Mungos either. 

"So, Brat, what's picking your brain?" 

James blinked as Longbottom smiled at him indulgently. His disgust at the treatment must have shown in his face too, because it elicited a chuckle out of the easygoing professor. He could see where Lupin might have been drawn in because it was pretty hard to actively dislike the man. But then again, just like any other adult, the man dealt out half-truths and kept all students at an arms length out of professionalism. Which, fine, James could more than handle that when he expected no more from his teachers than that, but at the same time, it was rotten of the man to give out such false hope. 

"I want to know more about werewolves," he stated baldly, obviously shocking Longbottom in the process. 

"I don't know," the man started off uncertainly, but James was having none of that. 

"If you don't tell me, I'll just find out on my own." So maybe he was being a bit mulish about the whole thing, but he was long past caring. And he was done with pretending that his life had nothing to do with werewolves or that it wasn't affected by them. If anything, he'd earned the right to know more about them since it seemed he was going to be plagued with them for the rest of his life. "Look, I don't really care if you tell me or not," he added for good measure as Longbottom seemed to waver. "You seem to know stuff about them, so I thought I'd try you first, but if you don't want to tell me, well whatever, you know? There are other ways to find out what I want to know, and even if you stop me this year, it's not like you'll be here next year." Not to mention that when the ratio of students to teachers was about a hundred and fifty to one, the odds of any of them stopping him when he set his mind to something was reaching astronomically slim proportions. 

"You kids just aren't keen on giving up, are you?" Longbottom asked rhetorically before blowing out a long and tired sigh. "I was only hired on for the year." James snorted in disbelief, which earned him an annoyed look from his professor. "You kids both try my patience and amuse me, and you often manage it in the same breath. I'm only filling in this year because the current Defense teacher took maternity leave. Her position here is secured. It's not personal." 

"It never is," James muttered, just under his breath as he let out a resigned sigh. 

"Why the sudden interest in werewolves?" Nonchalant, the man most certainly was not. Raising an eyebrow, James gave him a look. "Okay, dumb question," Longbottom readily acknowledged. "Better question: What exactly do you want to know about werewolves?" 

James mulled the question over for a moment before hesitantly asking, "What are they like?" 

Longbottom must have been expecting a more specific—or at the very least, more graphic—question, because the man seemed thrown by the simplicity of it. "What are they like?" he repeated, dumbly. "They're like us. One day out of the month, they lose control over their minds and bodies, but for the rest of the month, they are no different than you or I." 

It was just the answer that James hadn't wanted to hear. 

*****

TBC… 


	9. 9

Writing eleven-year-old boys is a lot harder than I'd've thought it would be. Not to mention that sometimes they seem to be eleven going on forty going on five. X_x

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Bless you for still having the patience to read this, and my apologies that this chapter is so short. 

*****

"So," Sirius started out as nonchalantly as possible, "how's your mum?" Considering the fact that Lupin jumped about a foot in the air at the sound of his voice, Sirius guessed that the bloke hadn't thought that the rest of his dormmates would be up and waiting for him when he returned. 

"What?" Lupin turned to face him, and Sirius had to admit that, even in the dim light from the hallway outside of their room, it looked like Lupin had come out on the wrong end of a fight. He was scratched to all hell on his face and throat, he was limping slightly, and he pretty much looked like death warmed over. 

"Your mum, Remus," Peter butted in, slipping out from behind his curtained bed and making his way over to Lupin's, "you told us that you had to leave because she wasn't feeling well." 

"Oh," Lupin returned absently, "yeah, she's better." 

"I'll bet," Sirius snorted. What the hell, if Peter was going to camp out on Lupin's bed to get answers, Sirius didn't see why he couldn't do the same. Flopping down on Lupin's duvet, Sirius grinned up at the kid as Lupin scowled down at him. 

James was sulking over in his own bed, but he'd been doing that since he'd shown up out of the blue twenty minutes ago. And as far as Sirius was concerned, the little weasel could just stay there since he'd blown them off last night. Here he and Peter had risked life and limb, and James had seen it as a chance to play hooky. At the very least, the prick could have found them and invited them along for the day. 

"Are you feeling okay?" Leave it to Peter to get all worried, Sirius rolled his eyes as the kid plopped down beside him and looked up expectantly at Lupin. 

"What are you blokes playing at?" 

"We know, Lupin," Sirius cut in, and watched as Lupin's eyes slid over to James's bed before turning back to face Sirius, a sneer firmly in place. 

"Color me lucky." Lupin leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Sirius could appreciate the ironic humor of the remark from someone who was colorblind. The kid might be a prick on occasion, but at least he was never boring. 

"Isn't there another way?" Peter butted in before Sirius cold retort. 

"Another way for what?" Remus arched an eyebrow. 

"To get your blood sucked," Sirius threw out flippantly. He figured he'd save Peter the trouble of getting all sappy. Because if given half the opportunity, Sirius was sure Peter would cry, and in the interest of preserving their dignities as men, it was in his best interests to make sure Peter didn't turn this into a sob fest. 

"Excuse me?" 

"We know your mum's a vampire," Peter tried calmly, if a bit baldly. And sure, so Sirius had said it pretty much just as bluntly, but at least he'd done it without looking lie he'd just discovered that Santa Claus was going to jail for kicking kittens. 

"My mum's a vampire," Lupin said slowly, before his expression crumpled slightly and he hid his face in his hands. 

Damn it all to hell, Sirius had known this was going to degenerate into some stupid crybaby crap. "I can't believe you just cane out and said that," he rounded on Peter, panicking. Anything to not have to look at Lupin's shoulders as they shook. What kind of crazy idiot cried? In front of his dormmates, no less? Didn't Lupin have even a smidgen of self-respect? " 'We know your mum's a vampire'," Sirius mocked Peter in falsetto.  

"Oh and you were so much more subtle about it with the blood sucking, you twat," Peter snapped back. Since Sirius was pretty sure Peter had no idea what a twat was, he figured Peter was just as thrown by Lupin's reaction as he was. But then again, it was hard to blame him. Lupin had tumbled down a flight of stairs, breaking an ankle, and had come out of the experience laughing. 

"You're the one who wanted to talk about it tonight. I said it was his business and if he wanted to lose a pint every couple of weeks, well, who cares?" He had said no such thing, but it was a hell of a lot easier to argue with Peter than it was to attempt to comfort a hysterical Lupin. Or a hysterical anyone for that matter. When his mother went all teary-eyed, complete with tissues, Sirius hid under his bed and waited for the storm to pass. 

If a person was going to lose it, they should just lose it in private. Or in the loo. Or anywhere that was not in front of other boys. Didn't loony Lupin know that? 

"You're the one who thought it would be a good idea to break into his school records to make sure she really was a vampire." Peter was beginning to turn an interesting shade of red, but Sirius couldn't tell if it was out of embarrassment or anger. 

"You were going to break into my school records?" 

Stunned, Sirius watched as Lupin fell onto the bed beside him, holding his stomach, and laughing silently. "Yes!" So it wasn't the best of comebacks. 

"It was all their idea," Peter squealed, jumping ship. Sirius scowled at him, but Peter just shot him a confused grin and shrugged a shoulder. 

"What can I say?" Lupin managed between gasps for air. "You found me out. I go home so my mum can get the elixir of life."  
  


Something was a bit fishy here. "And," Sirius gestured grandly, "you're okay with that?" 

"Of course," Lupin sat up slightly, leaning against the headboard of the bed, his pajama top sliding to the side enough to show a rather deep looking gouge that skated across his collar bone. "She gave me life. I give her life. It's all good." 

"But," Peter sputtered, "but she _sucks your blood_." That sent Lupin into new peals of laughter. 

"She's not a vampire, is she," Sirius hazarded a guess. 

"Do I even want to know what made you blokes think she was?" 

"Probably not," Peter sighed a bit sullenly. "Is she a banshee?" 

"No," Lupin positively _giggled_, before reaching over and lightly smacking Peter on the arm with a fist. "I think I'm rubbing off on you, though." 

"Harpy?" Sirius offered with the beginnings of a grin. 

"Sure, why not," Lupin agreed easily, squeezing a chuckle out of Sirius. 

"No, better yet, I'm sure she's a giant. In the USSR," Peter rolled his eyes. 

"Probably not," Sirius argued with mock gravity. "Lupin's more of a fairy," he laughed as he ducked the punch Lupin threw at him. 

"Kiss arse, Black. She's not a fairy." Lupin's laugh this time was accented with a rather hoarse cough, though, and Sirius backed towards the foot of the bed to give Lupin some room to lie down. So maybe his mum wasn't a vampire, and sure it was fun to joke around about it, but _something_ had beaten the hell out of the kid. Even if he was a bit embarrassed about being wrong when it came to the electroshock theory and the vampire theory, there still had to be an explanation as to why Lupin looked like he'd just tumbled with a pair of scissors gone rogue. 

And yeah, so the kid was an annoying snot for the vast majority of the time, but Sirius really didn't think Lupin deserved to be sent home all the time so this _something_ could take a chunk out of his hide.  

"Maybe she's a werewolf," James's voice cut in, as the kid stood by his bed on the opposite side of the room, tense. And as much as Sirius hated to admit it, the explanation did make an eerie kind of sense. Sliding his eyes back over to Lupin, he could see that all the humor had left Lupin's face. 

"If you want to say something, Potter," Lupin's voice was soft, but it carried through the suddenly silent room, "why don't you just come out and say it." 

*****

TBC…


	10. 10

Okay, so it only took me…er, forever…to get over the fact that OotP completely Jossed this story. If you're still reading it by this point, I'm gonna assume that you've accepted the fact that this thing is so AU it's not even funny. I feel kinda strange with so many pod characters running around, but there you have it.

Sorry it took so long in coming.

aaaaaa

"Lupin, you snot nosed brat, I _told_ you to stay in the infirmary."

James rolled over groggily to see everyone's favorite Defense teacher coddling his favorite pet student. James was willing to just roll back over and pretend to go back to sleep, but since both Peter and Sirius woke up at the sound of Longbottom's annoyed growl, he didn't think it was going to be much of an option.

"Why was he supposed to stay in the infirmary? He got back, didn't he?" James could hear the innocence in Sirius's voice, but didn't buy it for a second. Actually, he was surprised that Sirius hadn't caught on just yet. What did the bloke need? A detailed explanation complete with footnotes?

Watching the proceedings, he could see that Lupin wasn't going to go easily. In fact, the crazy twat had just thrown the covers over his head and burrowed in further. "Remus, are you okay?" Peter's voice chipped in.

"Do you mind? Some of us are still trying to sleep."

"James," Sirius called out as Longbottom finally managed to pry some of the cover down, "that stick? Remove it from your ass."

Shit. See if he ever let the prick copy his Charms homework again. He flipped Sirius the bird as Longbottom's back turned.

"Dammit Remus," Longbottom, who James suspected had opted to just ignore their jabbering all together, muttered, "you're burning up." With that, Longbottom just scooped the boy up, blankets and all.

And James saw red. Okay, so maybe there was a hint of green to the red. But it didn't matter. They pacified him with trite words and pats on the head, before retreating and pretending that if they didn't get too involved, if they didn't get too close, then everything would just work itself out without their help. And that was when they weren't pretending that he was two and couldn't wipe his own bum. Well, fuck them. He didn't need them. He didn't want them.

And apparently the feeling was completely mutual.

"Wait, can we come?" Sirius piped in, just as James pulled back his duvet.

"Yeah, he's our friend." Peter added, and James wanted to laugh. Their friend? Lupin wasn't their friend. He was a scummy little two faced liar. Why was he the only one in the room who seemed to be able to see that? A bloke made friends with other blokes or, on the rare occasion when they weren't attempting to scratch one's eyes out, girls. A bloke did not make friends with something that could kill indiscriminately. A bloke didn't befriend something that could tear and chew and slash skin and flesh into unrecognizable ribbons.

It was the principle of the thing.

"Not this time, boys. Go to class," Longbottom threw out tersely. James scowled at his retreating back. Oh right, go to class. Had the idiot momentarily forgotten that his class was the first class that they had today? Crawling out of bed, he glared at both Sirius and Peter, both of whom ignored him completely, and made his way into the bathroom to get washed up.

He was so glad everyone was in a tizzy over Lupin and Lupin's lack of sanity and health. Wasn't that just a peach. As if, by keeping his dirty secrets a secret, Lupin was somehow more worthy of all the attention and sympathy. How many people knew what Lupin was? Did the kid just walk through the halls, amused as fuck by their complete obliviousness? Did he think it was fucking funny, playing the wolf in sheep's clothing?

Because James could assure him that the joke was over.

"Oi, James, you gorgeous yet?" Sirius hollered in, his tie hanging limping over his shoulders. "We were thinking, me and the yellow wonder," Sirius pulled a half dressed Peter into a headlock, "that we'd stop by the infirmary at lunch. I know you and Lupin are on bad terms, but so what? Think of this as a chance to poke at him while he's down." Sirius shot him a brilliant smile. James didn't return it.

"Do whatever you like," he mumbled, pushing roughly past them. They didn't understand, anyway. He made a detour, stopping by his trunk first, and then slipped out of the room and past the Fat Lady.

He had no intention of going to class like a good little boy.

In fact, he was a bit sick of being the good boy. And he was done trying to be anyone's golden child, because obviously the effort was all for nothing.

aaaaaa

When Potter announced that he'd come to visit Lupin in the infirmary in order to kill him, Remus laughed.

He figured it was quite understandable given the fact that James was wielding a silver candlestick like a sword and Remus was three shades of loony on the drugs that the Madam had given him about an hour ago. Not to mention, that if James would have asked nicely, Remus was pretty certain he would have saved the scared little boy the trouble. Potter looked like he was about to skewer something with his eyeballs, but Remus wasn't stupid, and he could smell the sweat—the fear—radiating off the kid's body.

"You think I'm surprised?" he rasped out, the voice he'd had the night before having somehow been swallowed by the fever Longbottom claimed he had. "You never would have know what I was if I didn't tell you," he needled.

There was a shiver of terror working its way up his spine, because he knew how much there was to lose. And while he was sure Potter considered himself the tragic and broken party, Remus could assure him he had a lot to learn about hitting the bottom. "Look, you filthy animal, I'm doing everyone a favor," James snarled poking Remus in the chest with the candlestick. It burned like fire, even through his pajama top.

"I could've told you that," he snorted instead of reacting to the pain. Filthy animal. Dirty beast. Inhuman scum. Did Potter honestly think that there was a name he could come up with that Remus hadn't already thought of first? The prick wasn't _that_ imaginative. Then again, it was probably likely that just like all the people who had inspected him and tried to reacclimatize him and socialize him to his new life as a spurned and feared member of society, James didn't see him as a person, or even a person capable of coming up with ironic quips and nasty names.

"I'm doing this 'cause no one else will." James half heartedly hit him on the arm with the candlestick, but this time Remus couldn't quite suppress a wince of pain as the stick collided with skin. "Because no one ever steps up when they're supposed to." James pulled the candlestick back, wrapping both hands around it, and for a moment, Remus allowed himself to feel a small pang of jealousy that the bloke could just hold something like that without even thinking twice about it.

He'd be damned though, if he was going to let some little pissant who didn't even know how to get a haircut be the one to do him in. There were less painful ways to die, and he intended to take all the fun out of Potter's slaying. "Pretty!" he yelled at the top of his hoarse lungs, almost laughing as Potter looked about ready to wet his pants while Remus tackled him to the ground.

Predictably, Potter reacted as if he had the plague, and scrambled away from Remus's touch as fast as humanly possible, ignoring the fact that Remus had managed to gain possession of the silver candlestick. "Pretty," he gasped out, as the silver burned his palms as smoldering flesh tickled his nose. "Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty," he chanted, trying to take his mind off of how much it hurt. Or maybe it was just that in the fevered state of his drug induced thinking, he could trick himself into believing that by saying it was pretty he was conveying how much it burned, scouring his hands.

"I hate you!" James's scream broke through his mantra, and Remus howled in pain as James ripped the candle stick from his hands. "You're a fucking loony, you are." James threw the stick, making a dent in the wall. If Remus had been more coherent, he might have been impressed.

It didn't matter anyway, because Remus couldn't see it through his tears. It hurt. It hurt so much. The problem was he couldn't figure out what hurt the worst; his injuries from a nasty full moon that were completely self-inflicted, the bleeding and melted looking flesh of his hands that stank and had been entirely his own damn fault, or his imminent expulsion that he was wholly responsible for from a school he was beginning to see that he'd never wanted to leave in the first place.

Blinking hard, and trying to stifle the sobs that were pounding in his chest, he looked up to see his face mirrored on Potter's. And that hurt too.

Because, for whatever reason, it was easy to see that had Remus been someone else all together, they might have been good friends. What was worse, had he been anyone else, Remus would have wanted to be Potter's friend. Fucking stuck-up asshole that he was.

He tried to uncurl his fingers as Potter grabbed the candlestick and ran out of the room as if the beast of hell was after him. Who knew? Maybe it was.

aaaaaa

Apparently James had skipped out on the same basic lesson to manhood that Peter had missed, Sirius decided with a scowl as he collide with a sobbing James.

They were men. Men did not cry.

Sirius got this basic concept, why the fuck didn't they? "What the hell, James?" he shook the bloke's shoulder as James wiped the tears out his eyes hard enough to be taking skin off with his fists as far as Sirius could tell.

"You wouldn't fucking understand, prick."

Well, so much for being friendly. He rolled his eyes. "Oh get over yourself, mister high and mighty. I'm sure a mudblood peasant like me can figure it out if you use simple words," he tried humoring. James was having none of it, as the bloke fell limply back against the wall, a candlestick dangling rather strangely from his hand.

"Is that blood on that?"

Scrubbing his eyes one last time, James pulled the candlestick up to get a better look at it. He laughed then, but it wasn't a laugh that Sirius recognized. In fact, he almost refused to believe the hysterical noise was coming from his friend's mouth because it sounded so, well, crazy for lack of a better term. "I couldn't do it," James babbled. "I was so sure I could do it."

"Okay," Sirius patted him ineffectually on the back. Couldn't these prats find a pretty face with developing boobs to do this to? Why was it always him who had to calm the hysterics? He got enough of this shit at home. It just figured that someone was going to have a kitten. They'd all been getting along too well. "What couldn't you do? There was enough noise in there to level this floor. You're lucky Pomfrey's downstairs trying to sort through a joke gone wrong." He'd conveniently leave out whose joke it was and how in going wrong it had pretty much gone right until James was in a better state to appreciate Sirius' magical genius. "I know you're keen on ripping Remus' throat out, and I know that I told you it might be fun to poke at him while he was down, but isn't it bad sport to try and kill a bloke when he's already down?"

James laughed that same hysterically insane laugh again, and Sirius decided then and there that he liked sane James much more than he liked the loony version.

"You don't understand, ignoramus." James reached over and pulled Sirius's hand over, shoving the bloody stick into his hands. Grimacing, Sirius tried to resist the urge to drop it as it slid in his hands, getting them red. Maybe his Dad wasn't too far from the truth with all his Satan worshiping worries. Because as far as Sirius was concerned, this had all the ear markings of something Gross and Disturbing. And while he could and would quite happily handle the gross, disturbing was another matter all together.

"If we have to sacrifice a virgin on an alter, it's going to be Peter," he held the end of the stick, which seemed to be the only spot now that wasn't slick with drying blood.

"I thought you were smarter than this," James' red rimmed eyes bored into him, and Sirius felt his hackles rising.

"Maybe if I had a fucking clue as to what you're nattering on about and flipping out over it would be a different story," he snapped back angrily. "We can't all be magical prodigies like the wonderful James Potter."

"Fuck you," James muttered, but there was no heat to the words and it stole the bluster right out of Sirius. "Why don't you hand the candlestick to Lupin and then come back to me after you've figured it out."

And just like that, James up and decided to conversation was over, walking away from Sirius's perplexed expression.

Climbing off the floor, Sirius shrugged his shoulders. He wondered, as he pushed open the door to the infirmary, if maybe his mum hadn't gotten her owls messed up when he'd received his Hogwarts letter.

Because in all truth, it felt like he was living in a mental institution more than it felt like he was living in a boarding school.


End file.
